Interconnectedness

Using my friend's Amazon account, I bought a cube for my student in the name of a TFI Fellow using my dad's card. There are 5 individuals involved over here.

If this process is extended a bit more, you could see the interconnectedness from one to another. The other people are the delivery boy, the company Amazon, the company which made the cube, the cardboard box company, the person who packed it, the print label, the computer, internet, the design, the cube itself, the credit card company, the transaction processing company, bank, etc. And, on a broader level, it can be extended to numerous people who are involved in it if delved to 4th level connections. It can also be connected to the next level when the purpose/use of the product is complete. Like, it is recycled, discarded, etc.

So, what's happening here? Let's take my initial statement of ordering a cube. A simple result is in such an interconnected world, my student will get the cube, only if everything works perfectly. Yes, it has to be precise and perfect. What if one of them fails? My student will not get the cube. Yet, we often blame and come to a single conclusion that 'Amazon is better', 'Flipkart is better', 'the delivery boy/girl is terrible', 'companies need to follow ethics' etc. taking a moral high stand when something fails, not realizing where it's held up. Would it be the mistake of Amazon if the delivery person had a flat (puncher) tyre? Of course, you could blame Amazon saying that they should hire people with vehicles who has better tyres and go in routes which have better roads. That's a futile argument in itself.

Let's take this pandemic now. COVID-19. It's making one thing people realize that we are connected to each other. We aren't as distant as we think we are. Is that good? Is that bad? Well, that depends. But, people are realizing it right now. What is our life? Maybe a bit of existential questions, but it is required from time to time. And, 2020 has been an unimaginable year from the start. Starting with the wildfires, locusts attacks, and now virus. And, it looks like this time the nature is attacking us and we are defenseless. This has been happening for a while. And, this also brings up Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' situation. We'll evolve for the best. The ones who come out of this pandemic would be more resilient than the previous generation. 

Additionally, this brings up the interesting case of virus. It has no borders. Like the quote 'beneath this mask there is more than flesh, beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof' from 'V for Vendetta.' Like an idea which doesn't have borders, virus doesn't too. It doesn't care about your caste, class, religion, status, language, race. It's the same. People are realizing about the 'region', but it will be a better day when they realize about the other aspects too. If a virus takes people to realize about the 'region', what does it take for other aspects?

The sad part is still the fight is divided among countries. Like, there was an article which said about US trying to get exclusive rights or monopolize the vaccine. It hasn't happened yet, and hopefully it won't happen. The virus has shown that region doesn't matter. Then, why are we fighting still as if the region matters?? Lockdown of a country/region is understandable to contain the virus, but how united are we in this fight? We weren't concerned about the issue until it came to us. That still shows that we still have a long way to go. And, this virus asked the question. Let's look for the answer

P.S. Started this post on Nov 5, 2019 but couldn't complete it. Maybe it was waiting for a bigger purpose like the current pandemic.