Lest we forget, family matters
Another faithful reminder during the corona crisis is the significance of family unity and solidarity. An instant family reunion of sort occurs at this time where we cherish good memories and refresh stories told — about the difficulties endured, the dreams fulfilled, and wins celebrated. It is a re-enactment of family culture marked with favorite dishes prepared by a caring and loving mother while the provisions are being sustained by a tireless toil of a thoughtful father.
Staying at home is a throwback of family dialogue in the past where parents and children used to openly talk to each other, threshing out differences and solving problems together. During this family bonding, there occurred a blood encounter in a purest sense, our hope, love, and unity being the matching fluids to reunite us after long years of alienation and isolation from each other.
On the lighter side, corona virus brings us back to a family atmosphere we seldom savor, a crowning moment snatched away by a world pre-occupied with money-making, pursuit for fame and power and cut-throat competition, all made easy by the instrument of social media and digitalization.
And the Mother Earth is healing, too
While the world stops, the Mother Earth starts its own process of healing. Along with the slowdown of massive fuming of smokes from factories and endless emissions from millions of vehicles, come a clearer and bluer view of the wide sky. With the exodus of people from the streets and urban places to their houses either to stay or work at home, the carbon footprints have substantially reduced to an enormous proportion.
In my silent musings, I imagine that somewhere out there, a once shaved forest is now starting to sprout to its lushness. Overflowing streams, brooks and rivers once polluted and adulterated are now flowing freely drifting down to the ocean. Eroding mountains forming its shapes; losing fertile soils gaining its abundance.
Somewhere in the vastness of the earth, our unique and varied but endangered and extinguishing flora and fauna are now flourishing and chanting around the harmonious bionetwork. Our magnificent corals and astonishing aquatic resources destroyed and exhausted by greedy humans are now gaining a breathing space for regeneration and reproduction.
Staying at home during the quarantine period is an unconscious act of preserving a fundamental right to a balanced and healthful ecology and fulfilling our “inter-generational responsibility”(Landmark case of Oposa versus Factoran) where we represent our generation as well as generations yet unborn to “prevent the misappropriation or impairment of rainforests” and “arrest the unabated hemorrhage of the country’s vital life support systems and continued rape of Mother Earth.”
While we are wrestling with corona virus, an intercourse for mutual healing between ailing humanity and decaying environment is serenely taking place in the universe.
The making of god of small things
The timeframe prescribed for stay-at-home gives us a dose of a slow-paced and mind-numbing life. But deep in my mind, it drives us into creative landscape, usually yielding to simple yet meaningful projects. Details displayed in ingenuity are more expressed under the atmosphere of monotony. A myriad of things to do while in quarantine may vary depending on your creative appetite.
Some with extra lot may go into gardening or ornament the verandah with hanging flowers. Others may enhance skill in carpentry or tap talent for interior designing. We can also develop talents in the area of arts and music or perhaps learn new language online. As for me, reading my favorite books will fill my cup and writing tidbits of wisdom will nourish my soul.
It is in this prolonged and agonizing isolation that we become god of small things where every detail yields a symbol of hope and love. It is in the details that we are able to appreciate the hidden human potential in us — our creativity, talents and inner aspirations.
Health and Happiness
At the core of the value proposition amidst this crisis is our mindset on health vis-à-vis our pursuit to happiness. In my book, “Higher Law”, it is worth to reiterate that “oftentimes we pushed ourselves up even exceeding our human limitations, puffing up with false pride that we can make everything possible, by whatever means even to compromise our health. Until we forget that the ultimate ends –health and happiness– are the very reasons why we perspire and get inspired everyday, and not the money-making which is only a means to such grand purpose.”
This corona pandemic reminds us again that, “we miserably forget that good health drives lives to greater heights. To espouse a healthy lifestyle is to create a balance of four significant human dimensions — work or business, family, community and spiritual life. Good health bestows on us a better premium to become creative in all that we do and be passionate to bring about good results and meaningful changes in our lives. Good health ignites the power of dreams within us and propel us to transform dreams into reality. Thus, anything like corona virus that holds hostage of our health disrupts the stream of our collective dreams for better and prosperous life.
As we are healing as one world, what are we hoping for in the future?
I am posing a challenge onto myself and to everyone of what we can do for ourselves, our family, our country in a twin frame of time — in the PRESENT, while we stay at home or (stay at work) and in the FUTURE, after recovery from this corona crisis.
Remember, amidst the depth of uncertainty comes the breadth of opportunity.
