Connections

Globalisation makes the world a more connected place, or so they say. We form links wherever we go in life. We leave traces of ourselves in other people's lives as well. Like it or not, we have become a part of an environment, one in which we no longer exist as independent entities, and where choices made affect many different people - directly or indirectly.

But really, one does wonder if connections are really to be taken seriously. It's just like playing the blame game. Take for example the haze situation that happens here every now and then. Who do we blame? The Indonesian government for not controlling their farmers? Do we blame the farmers instead for not taking into consideration the people of neighbouring countries that are affected by it?

To what extent are we allowed to meddle and interfere in the issues of others? If the trees are found on Indonesian land, why can't the farmers burn them? Isn't it their right to? What can the Singaporean government do? Can we prevent them from doing so? Are we allowed to take action against them for burning trees in their land even though it affects us?

Similarly, this applies for relationships. When will we learn to consider events and people separate from each other? If John and Sally are best friends, and Michael is on bad terms with Sally, does that mean that John would not like Michael because of his relationship with Sally? If this was actually practised by us all, we would all be in bipolar world and state of existence and we might just see a semblance of the Cold War again.

But even at a personal level, these things do exist. How many times have we heard friends arguing, and we were caught in the crossfire and issued the ultimatum to choose between them; between keeping one and losing the other? Why do such situations exist?

Some may argue, that to avoid such bipolarity, one must indeed be hypocritical and take on different persona when interacting with different people. The other alternative is for the entire world to get along fine with each other, and we'd exist as a "happy collective unit". Yes, the phrasing is meant to bring out the impossibility and child-like mindsets of those subscribing to that viewpoint. So from that, we clearly see that being hypocritical would clearly be choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Why people choose to remain interconnected and relate every single event still bewilders me. So if Paul kills Jack, Jack's family would then hate Paul, his family, his friends, his friends' families and their friends, and their friends and families, and so on, because they are related to Jack's murderer. In that case, they might as well hate God for creating Paul. Yet God created Jack, so they should hate God, and that implies they should hate themselves as God created them. That roughly portrays the whole idea behind such connections.

Yet, we cannot live and survive as independent entities without connections. And this again reflects our dual or hypocritical personality.

What we would give to find that balance in life...