Sanity Is Impossibility by Santosh Jha (books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

especially in developing world of China and India, thousands of villages have been completely deserted and even developed countries like most European nations have villages where little sustainable activities are taking place. In only last 50 years, humanity has destroyed completely the cradle of its own civilization by making rural landscape unviable and unsustainable. This in turn is impacting the sanity and system of urban spaces, which have emerged as the only spaces where life-living could be sustained. It is easily imaginable as what is the state of life-living in most urban spaces when the reality remains that over 50 percent of global population live in less than one percent of global land. And, the remaining half of the global population not in urban space is trapped in a landscape, which has become unsustainable.

It is not that global think tanks and intellectuals are not pointing out to these huge anomalies in contemporary civilized life-living but the fact remains that majority of people do not see and accept this insanity as they have this populist mindsets and cognition to blindly and madly follow what looks like the ‘smart’ thing, everyone is doing! There is some thinking at political levels in some developed countries to correct this huge anomaly but it is doubtful whether any meaningful step shall ever be taken. However, good news is that some aware and conscious young men and women have understood this modern trap and working their way out to sustainable life-living in rural landscapes. This is a pointer to the fact that only personal sanity and individualistic enterprise is the possibility in contemporary state of insanity.

Another big trap situation and huge anomaly, which is major causality of contemporary human insanity and hypocrisy is in global economic and financial systems. Like the urban-rural hypocrisy, the economic and financial ecosystems are living wildly and madly with stark stupidities, despite warning emanating from the ecosystems itself as well as from experts, who see the root of trouble.

Post Second World War, the shaken up humanity desperately sought a global order, which worked out a political and economic model for the world to avoid any such calamitous probability like the two world wars. The human and other costs of the two world wars were so colossal that humanity, especially the intellectuals and leaderships of the world sat together to work out global system of sanity in the years to come. Liberalism, open trade, free market economy, anti-imperialism, disarmament and international dialogues were accepted as the singular and common creed for all nations of the world to follow. In next few years, things were also started in the right note. However, it is common knowledge how everything lost its fizz and national identity, national interest and supremacy politics once again led humanity to the same old and oft-trodden road to major conflicts, wars and armament.

Not only politics failed, the global economic sanity was also shattered with politics deciding to disrespect all sanity principles of peace and order. The post world wars resolve of free trade, cooperation and sharing of resource and expertise were thrown to the winds. The powerful and disastrous element of nationalism, identities and narrow-wallism of domestic growth superseded the compassionate and idealistic imagery of global wellness and altruistic sustainable growth for all humanity, across nation-state boundaries.

So, manufacturing boom and technological upsurge in countries created trade war conflicts. Global trade redesigned the old fashioned imperialism and global finances worked overtime like national armies to churn the world into domination triggered international relationship. Strategic interests and geopolitics were redesigned to remodel and de-contextualize human slavery and human deprivation into novel terminologies of international monetary mechanism and finances. Disarmament was gradually and conveniently forgotten and rather, diplomatic artistries were honed up to ensure perpetual strife-zones across globe to keep afloat the lucrative money-minting arms bazaar.

And where humanity has reached! Latest world inequality report tells it all as how humanity has failed big time in ensuring wellness for all. The model of polity and economy has miserably failed in ensuring equitable growth and distribution of incomes and wealth. Contemporary reality of a handful of billionaires pocketing massive majority of wealth and incomes, leaving over 90 percent of human population struggling for a descent life-living is the perfect picture of human insanity in the post world war era. It is definitively hugely contrary to the dream and aspiration of humanity in middle of 20th century of a world order, which could have ensured reasonable parity in life-living essentials.

There is almost a common hypocrisy globally and there is little initiative to do away with it. From the available knowledge of human body-mind mechanism and processes, it is evident to all that the worst enemy of human wellness and excellence is STRESS – Physical as well as Mental. The pollution in milieus, cluttered unnatural living, precarious work cultures, unhealthy and suicidal lifestyle choices, tainted and imbalanced food, complex life-living, stressed relationships, insecurities, conflicts, confusion, anxieties, etc. They are mostly the outcome of the personal, societal, political and economic choices the humanity has made and continues to plunge deeper into the malady every day. This central issue is not being addressed by the contemporary intellect of humanity.

If scientific studies confirm that global wellness levels has not enhanced post second world war in nearly 75 years, as wellness is a function of many tangible and intangible elements, then what is the good news behind all that obsession with economic growth and technological advancement? In fact, it may well be accepted that probably this very contemporary model of economic growth and technological advancement have unleashed such entropic energies in human life-living that it has nullified and zeroed whatever gains growth-story could muster up in the last century. This may be debatable as there is no definitive global data or deep study that could prove it. Still, this much we all can see and say that the very innocuous and simple question, ‘Are You Happy’, has come to stay as so much complex and complicated one that the ‘Conflict and Confusion’ over this question itself and its answer has soared sky high!

This conflict and confusion has evolved so fast and deep – laterally and vertically that it has come to stay as defining emotion or state of mind of average human in contemporary world. It is definitely contrary to the very core notion of ‘growth’ and development. With time, as a natural progression, human knowledge and wisdom increases and with enhancement of collective human knowledge comes growing clarity, objectivity, linearity of perceptions and most importantly, a confidence in average person that he or she lives in a world that has the intellect to ensure his or her wellness. But it seems, the reverse has happened with passage of time. The level of conflict and confusion has enhanced. Much of it can safely be ascribed to growing volatility and hypocrisies in political and economic domains. Science has also added its own quota of confusion and conflict, instead of removing them as what reaches average person is pseudo science and not the pure science.

Human life-living is most powerful continuity of the universe. Humanity has survived and prospered, despite all odds and challenges that often threatened to mitigate it. This happened primarily because average human mind consciousness has firm and archetypal belief in continuity. This continuity comes from his or her linkages with past and associated hopes of betterment in future. Everything from religion to culture and from family to society have been designed on the basis of this strong and ingrained belief in his or her continuity in life and even after life. This continuity is the singular most powerful support system for sanity of average man and woman. It is still debatable, because of lack of sufficient data, yet seems sufficiently perceptible that there is loads of confusion and conflict in contemporary milieus and life-living that has eroded or we may say, eroding the Sanity of Continuity for average person.

It is for everyone to see and accept that most of humans have this populist perception and belief that contemporary politics and economy has solutions for whatever problems and troubles it has in his or her life-living. In contemporary world, average person’s linkages, dependence and adherence to politics and economy has increased, compared to 20th century life-living, when it was norm to look for solutions in personal, familial and societal spaces. This itself is a huge shift from somehow more compassionate and less competitive spaces to a hugely competitive and least compassionate domain. This shift is telling on the sanity of individuals as it has shaken up the core comfort of continuity in life-living as both politics and economy are majorly instable and discontinuous landscape compared to family, relationships and society.

Though there is insufficient data to have any definitive linkages between suicides and this contemporary world shift in ‘linkages-dependence’ of average person, we can clearly see how trends suggest, this is no impossibility. As per the world health organization (WHO) report, close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one life lost every 40 second. More calamitous fact is that, as per WHO, for each adult who died by suicide, there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide. Interesting is the fact that suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. Moreover, around 80 percent of all suicides occurred in low and middle-income countries in 2016.

Experts do admit that suicides rates have increased sharply and prime reason is growing stress but it is still difficult to detail the specificities of suicide. However there are enough indicators. It is estimated that suicide rates may have increased around 30 percent in just last 20 years. It is also known that suicide rates are considerably high among males, especially in higher income countries. All these hint at the pattern, we have mentioned in above paragraphs. It is accepted that men have more ‘linkages-adherence-dependence’ on polity and economy compared to women, who are known to have deeper and more stabilized ‘linkages-adherence-dependence’ on family and society. Also, suicide being second largest killer in 15-29 age group also points at the possibility that this age group have more augmented and predominant ‘continuity-deficit’ and insecurity about their future. They also may be accepted as a section of population having more ‘linkages-adherence-dependence’ with polity-economy than family-society. The very fact of sharp rise of suicides in most societies, irrespective of economic status is also effectively points out at a possibility that there probably is some ‘critical shift’ in the traditional support systems that average person had in the past.

We do not have enough data support and history of suicides over the decades and therefore, specificity is missing but probabilities do point out to a probable change in some critical element that is disturbing some old and traditional sanity. This same fact can be said about depression, which is also rising fast across the globe and is definitely linked with suicides and other entropic behavior. There is now reasonably sufficient data about the crisis of depression in contemporary life-living. As we have mentioned earlier, experts do tell us that there is sound tangible aspects of the growing menace of depression. It is estimated that depression and anxiety disorders cost global economy US$ 1 trillion each year. If the troubles like suicide, depression and many more human incapacitations have grown to such huge magnitude, it needs to be accepted that globally, things are not precisely well. There are tangible causes of such troubles and humanity and its mightily intelligent leadership cannot say this all is merely personal crisis.

We are not intending to go into detail of this possibility of linking major human troubles to polity and economy. This is not the professed goal of this eBook. This is also not possible for an individual to do just by assessing available data. It requires global studies and detailed scientific researches to arrive at any definitive conclusion. What we intend to do here is just be aware about this majorly critical possibility. For this