Our now is their tomorrow

A wise gentleman once told me that we all have but one life to live and it is simply not long enough to let you experience everything the world has to offer.

That is how I stumbled upon German teacher Eckhart Tolle, whose ideas I initially found to be unrealistic. The power of “now” feels impossible to harness after all, when one’s job is hitched to deadlines and forward thinking. And as we report on what is NOW, we also have to consider what is NEXT.

But Tolle’s words, which now and then appear on my social platforms, come to mind whenever I reflect on life’s purpose and meaning. These days, the world has been increasingly harder to bear. It would take immense self-possession to not succumb to the pressures that life tries to impose on you.

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but the thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is,” Tolle says.

More often than not, we do think about the present moment — just as it is — but end up sinking into the emotional responses that arise from thinking about it. It becomes even harder to “rise above the chatter” when social media keeps “rage-baiting” you.

Think about the mass shootings in America, the murder of four people at their office building in New York City, for example. Murder used to draw gasps of shock and outrage, but in the case of Wesley LePatner and the innocent victims of murder sprees lately, the haters populate social media with their rejoicing.

When did it become okay for people to openly express schadenfreude with such abandon?

In the case of LePatner, a successful executive who was a mom and a philanthropist, netizens on various social media platforms appeared to “relish” her death, as an online article described it. Some concluded that it was because she was Jewish, as Palestinian flags often appeared on the comments taunting her and her employer.

Why is it important to look at this incident that happened so far from our ghost flood control projects?

It is a lesson that the corrupt politicians of our world need to learn from: the City Journal magazine of New York City calls it “class rage and internet nihilism that justifies violence by turning innocent victims into scapegoats for moral fury.”

Moral fury indeed is rising even hereabouts, in these sunny, cheerful Philippine islands. The rains came to awaken Filipinos anew, and in this nth awakening, we can probably accept that we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Is it because the hate was allowed to flourish when people became too “nonchalant?” Too overwhelmed by daily strife to think beyond the self? In such a case, Tolle’s “no judgment” call to “free the mind” seems a bane rather than a boon.

Nonchalant is a word often bandied about by Gen Zs, who also made “rage bait” the word of the year. Perhaps the greed went from hundreds of millions to several billions siphoned off to their private kingdoms because people simply no longer cared. Government agencies became lax at their jobs, or government workers and public servants do not actually know, let alone understand, their job descriptions.

It is why our roads are potholed, our urban spaces and highways are ugly, and our street lights just as bright as the dimwits in government. It is why our national budget is free to all thieves and their cohorts. Because for them, maybe, this short life is meant to be spent in one-upmanship, never mind other people or the planet.

Given one’s short life on this earth, how do you live every present moment?