Dr Asangba Tzudir
In the evolution of the human society and within the changing times, more so, times that tells us the meaning of what it means to struggle, the idea of ‘survival’ or surviving seems to have taken precedence over the meaning of life, what it means to have a life, and what it means to live.
The Greeks used two terms to define life - ‘zoē’ and ‘bios.’ ‘Zoē’ expressed the simple fact of living common to all living beings, and ‘bios’ indicated the form or a way of living that is proper to an individual or a group. The former, talks of existence while the latter implies living. Contextually, the question of survival seems to be a more pressing concern rather than living, a fact testified by the various forms of discontentment which in no way adds value to build a qualified life and living. So also the level and the degree of competition also stakes life within the domain of survival.
Within the quest for survival is the issue of dependency syndrome where ‘we’ have adopted a culture of undeserved eating while depending almost everything on ‘others’ to get our things done, so also the things we buy to keep us ‘alive’. Bee Gees heyday song ‘Staying Alive’ aptly reminds of our condition. It only presents a tragic reality that we are traversing a path where we have to struggle even for ‘survival’ to stay alive because of our apathetic attitude towards work culture and the kind of lifestyle that rather ‘despises’ our rights, life and living.
This has led to ‘hijacking’ of our lives and subsequent enslavement in every way starting from economy that even the question of survival has become a difficult proposition. Our reality finds illusioned while day-dreaming about a magical wand to fulfil our desires unmindful of the real sickening world of our own making. That, within the issues which has put us in survival mode, it has also defeated the very meaning and purpose of living. That, without meaning or purpose, life simply is reduced to a life existing for survival.
A change in our mindsets from our easy life attitude and of ‘undeserved eating’ only can serve as a prologue to carry forward our struggle in reclaiming our ‘rights’ towards a shift from struggling to survive to a life that actually lives. It remains a central component of not only in ‘theory’ but a foundational aspect of our everyday life.
Even as life’s challenges put us in survival mode, so long as we fail to evolve and change the sickening mentality, we will only continue to ‘exist’ and ‘struggle to survive.’ Time is now ripe to really start struggling to reclaim our rights as a purposeful personhood and re-create a meaningful life called living.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
