In the past I used to be really depressed about things I used to see happening around the world. An abuse it would happen to the other edge of the planet would affect me for days, even weeks.
I am lucky enough to be born an empathetic person, I feel the pain of others really close to my heart. But a volunteer finds ways to become stronger in order to help more.
That’s why I searched and and tried to find the reasons for the cruelty and our egocentric behaviour. I looked things up about our Ape Nature, and realised that we just behave “normally”. We are just still primitive. We are still in the jungle. And that’s OK, I guess.
You can read this article about my conclusion about why we behave like this.
Two days ago though, I saw something that made me feel this torture again. This feeling I can’t bear, because it is really unfair.
In a city of a country that it isn’t important where it is (it happened all around the world, it just happened someone to film the incident there) fireworks killed hundrends, maybe thousands of birds in some minutes. Birds falling on the sreet dead and some others trying to get back on their feet.
People say Happy New Year. The truth is that we have just had a picture of this new year. It is these birds dying of fright.
Now let’s talk about New Year’s Eve. In the end of December we celebrate the completion of the Calendar. The Romans, this practical civilization, created a calendar in order to serve the demanding needs of the new complicated way of life of the humans. The completion of the calendar is a manmade creation and has nothing to do with wishes.
We just want and need to be positive. But we need to stop being illusionists.
A Wish has nothing to do with Practice.
The truth is, we have already had the first picture of the new year. And it is these birds falling dead on the street. And those who did it is us.
You and I.
Now let’s talk about birds.
Birds have been here earlier than us. They had lived together with the dinosaurs, they are their only relatives that managed to survive, maybe because of their size.
Luckily, for us. Because birds have inspired the human kind from the early stages of our evolution.
- They showed us how to fly.
- They showed us how to build.
- They helped us feel free when we were imprisoned.
No poet would ever exist without the beauty of their wings. Birds were a kind of creatures that helped us get here.
The sky today is empty. In Greece the skies are empty. Pollution, hunting, and fireworks have ended up our skies to be empty. I don’t know what is worse. To remember the sky full of birds or to never have seen a beautiful sky? Like the future humans will??
What I know for sure is that it will be a torture to be in the cages we create for our species without the company of the birds in the sky.
I am thinking of ways, for solutions. Digital fireworks? What empathetic words can we find to explain as simple stories to humans to change and heal the violence in our hearts?
We will find a way to get there. We have to get there. There just can’t be another end for this story.
We are a picture of the New Year.
Please do not encourage instinction.
You deserve better than this.
Efi Asvesti
Teacher & Copywriter @
MyGreekTeacher.com
