When Will We Ever Learn
As I wait for the train at Magallanes station, I discreetly observed the people around me.
Then I realized the great number of these people. A horde of the working class who take this very train out of necessity.
Metro Manila is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with an estimated population of 21.3 million.
That doesn’t include those who lived in nearby provinces like Cavite, Bulacan, etc.
And with the current local transmission of the dreaded COVID-19 virus, it just a matter of time that our government will declare an Alert Level 2 and initiate a lockdown.
By the time that happens those other people who are infected will be spreading the disease in their respective provinces.
Our country and its citizen will be massively overwhelmed.
I’m not trying to scare you but we have seen and read proof and evidence to foreign countries that were gravely hit before us.
Progressive countries like South Korea and Italy. There is also Japan, Singapore, and the United States.
Even the powerhouse economic country like China succumb to this almost invisible virus which we all know is the source of all of it.
Everybody is taking a hit. The world’s economy is down.
We might go into recession or going currently into it as we speak.
Stocks are plunging, Air flights have fallen sharply, factories are closing down, Tourism is witnessing a dip, and it is snarling supply chains and disrupting companies.
The world’s health is in jeopardy. As of today, there are 110,00 cases and close to 4,000 deaths as we speak. The elders, the infants, and those who have health conditions are critically in danger.
It’s very scary I know. But like most experts say that
“It will all get worse before it gets better”.
In due time, the COVID-19 will subside. We will get out of this and bounce back.
Everything will go back to normal. Business as usual.
The question is… “When will we ever learn”?
We people are stubborn in nature. Time and time again we always show our dogged determination not to change our attitude or position on something, even in spite of good reasons to do so.
We wait for something bad to happen, We get hurt, then that’s the only time we react.
We have to experience any bad things that come our way before we learn our lesson.
Some people do learn but unfortunately, most do not.
We may survive this COVID-19 disease but how about the next one.
What if a new strain of virus comes back 11 years after but with a higher mortality rate. More lethal and more dangerous.
And if the virus won’t kill us, maybe the “Often Ignored” Climate Change will.
In other words (or in boxing terms), if we are able to avoid the noxious uppercut, then the destructive left hook will.
Humans may overpopulate the Earth’s carrying capacity and disrupt its natural ecosystems, but in the end, we will be set back to balance by brutal force of nature.
It’s nature’s instinctive way to balance the population caused solely by us… the stubborn people!
Regardless of our religion is, we have seen a great number of signs that we should change.
Not only to love humankind but mother nature as well. Protecting the wild and endangered animals instead of killing it and making a profit from it.
But instead, we see this…
Grabbing the neighbor’s territories and assets for their own selves.
Producing mass weapons for their own created civil war.
Too much hatred, too much viciousness, living in a no remorse state of mind.
Greed has taken the most of us. We have to surround ourselves with material things mistakenly thinking that it will impress the people around you.
But in fact, it has caused a domino effect where it was passed on from the next person to the next creating a highly insecure and volatile world.
We know based on history that we never learn.
From the Bible’s Noah’s Ark, The Spanish Influenza Pandemic,
World War 1 and 2. And now this… the COVID-19 crisis.
Just imagine if this existing coronavirus pulled us out from our comfort zone.
We lost our jobs and our businesses.
There is not enough food to buy in the city that we live in.
And since we love ourselves so dearly, we are forced to move out to our provinces.
The once-forgotten place is now our new home.
We are now living amongst the trees. We are starting to realize the benefit of our trees. We get their juicy fruit and eat it.
Our kids climb up on it with a cheering face. We put shelter on it while it protects us from the heat of the sun and the blaze of the wind from the storm.
Then we walk towards the nearest river. We cleanse our bodies and quench our thirst.
The sounds of the water give us calm and tranquility.
At night, we set some wood from the trees that we live in and create a fire to have our supper. After the feast, we then realize the real beauty of what our creator made for us.
We look at the full moon and her radiance light puts us to sleep happily and soundly.
I believe, we the stubborn people, must witness this.
How mother nature truly loves us.
If we do this and got to reawaken by the beauty of it then maybe, just maybe…
“We Will Finally Learn”!