Godaya contemplates death

When looking back at what I've been writing in the column, I see how my mood has changed over the past couple of weeks. I've moved from being happy, wild, content, utterly hyperactive, to pensive, and somewhat depressed. This week, things don't look too good.

The inspiration (if you can call it that) for this week's rant came from what has been going on at the office for the last week or so. It began with me making a comment which was seen as being extremely insensitive by the angelic-one and the mother-who-looks-nothing-like-one. Then it was the death of the mother of an interviewee.

They (and even I at the time) thought I have lost sensitivity and sympathy for fellow beings. For me, those were just a couple of events in this world. At a macro level, we come across death in distant places on a daily basis. Wars around the world, and the money-driven reasons for them around the world has made us see death as a daily sight, and as a highly marketable one. I used to say that the Eelam War IV was like a sick, never ending test match, where the score is the number of enemies you killed.

On a personal, level, I've been living with the concept of death hanging around me for the past couple years, with a grandmother who is becoming more ill by the day. I try to avoid her as much as possible now, not because I don't care for her, but as means of self preservation. The feeling that death is constantly lingering around can be a maddening one. And that's the last thing I need in a life which is already an emotional roller coaster.

But there are the subtle messages that nature sends us to remind us that everything must come to an end someday. My route home takes me through Union Place, and then through Malay Street. For those who are not familiar with the area, there is a small playground down this place. The playground itself is a magical source for inspiration, but I'll hopefully come to that on another day.

What caught my eye today, was a stray dog that was sleeping by the side of the playground. It looked surprisingly similar to the four-legged creature at home, and I had a vivid heartbreaking vision of seeing my little angel of a dog in such a scenario. And then I had an epiphany.

Both the angelic-one and the mother-who-looks-nothing-like-one were wrong. I'm not an insensitive person. In fact, I think I'm the overtly sensitive type. I was completely heartbroken after something the-better-half-from-office said, and when I think about it now, I know she didn't mean it at all. I'm sensitive towards things which affect me, not events which happen hundreds of miles away; to people who I love and care for, not to people I have no attachment to. But that doesn't mean I'm completely ignorant to issues that affect people as a whole. Being a simple human being, I see people suffer, and my heart goes out to them, (see previous columns on poverty) but if I can't do anything about it, I don't let it get to me.

If it does enter my heart, then I need to do something about it. I know I'm not being Goday about one thing: I'd rather have feelings for ten people and try to help them in their hour of need, than get all worked up over things that I have no control over. Fix one heart, don't look at a million people who suffer and go "Ane pau."