Witoubou Newmai
Can we insist on a different cogent note to our story?
American psychiatrist and author Thomas Anthony Harris said in his celebrated book, “I’m OK-You’re OK”, that “if we hit a billiard ball and it strikes several more, which then are impelled to strike other billiard balls in turn…” but billiard balls will become nothing more than what they are as they are caught in the cause-and-effect drama. However, according to Mr. Harris, human beings will become more than what they were if they are exposed to the situation of billiard balls.
Today, Nagas are exposed to the billiard ball situation. This development has prompted us to ask: will the prevailing extraordinary time change Naga society to something it is not?
The present time is far more extraordinary than the same jargon we used to employ in various contexts in the recent past, as we are being confronted by so many layers of existential questions.
This situation is seen by all, but we are not sure how many people know about it. But again, knowing this thing will not lighten our burdens. Rather, knowing the situation will increase our burdens, as we address the challenges, for a certain length of time that is needed to sort out the problem. However, the later burdens are much better than averting our eyes from the problems.
Even as the Naga political movement continues to affect the normality of the ‘Naga life’, there have been thrusts from time to time from elsewhere which have compounded our situation further. The latest thrust is the COVID-19 induced issues.
What are those coronavirus induced issues? What are those Naga political movement induced issues? And what are many other thrusts which are impacting us? They are right there for every willing soul to see and examine them.
Examinations of the situation will help us to see ourselves in correct perspectives amidst all these hullabaloos. More to the point is the fact that such examinations will help us to insist on a different cogent note to our story. The sooner we do this, the lesser we become something else.
When Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” we really do not know what he was specifically referring to. But it is quite relevant to say that someone who really does not examine the situation does not know the situation. And as such, the person will not be able to organize in the head what to do to change the situation.
But it is one bit deviation from the above opinion expressed regarding what Mr. Harris had to say. According to him, there are three things that make people want to change. “One is that they hurt sufficiently. They have beaten their heads against the same wall so long that they decide they have had enough…”, said Thomas Harris, adding, “They have hit the bottom. They beg for relief. They want to change”. The second factor that “makes people want to change is a slow type of despair called ennui or boredom”. The third thing that “makes people want to change is the sudden discovery that they can”.
One may agree or not to the thought presented above may not be the main issue. The purpose is served if it can manage to nudge people.
