Would you take up a deal where…

 

You spend lots of money and time

You spend sleepless nights

Your peace of mind gone for years

Stressful, emotionally and physically 

 

You are always on your toes 

avoiding the next small or big disaster

You are almost always assured

misery, heartburn and heartache

 

What you give is guaranteed

But what you are promised

is far less tangible

Indescribable joy, an incredible bond,

And happiness

But no guarantee whatsoever

 

What you will get for sure

and criticism from most

Is advice from all 

Praise will be rare

from those near or far

 

Talk about a bad deal

The equation sucks 

at a personal level for sure

But there’s more to it

At a global scale

 

This is the deal that is root

of all of humanity’s problems

Of all misery large and small

greed, ambition, battles and wars, 

racism, genocide, global warming

all human right violations

 

We have been tricked

A hallucination at a level grander

than any magician can conjure

At a scale unsurpassable

 

More than 8 billion of these deals

has humanity made

Tricked have we been

by evolution, religion, society and biology

Whichever be your poison

 

What were we thinking?

when we made these deals

Or perhaps that’s the problem

the complete lack of thinking

 

What good are they? 

We can’t own them

We can’t beat them

We can’t scare them now

 

No longer are they

vehicles of our ambitions

Apparently we now supposed to

tolerate all their dilly-dallying 

 

We can’t make them 

dance to our tunes

Rather we dance to theirs

no matter their size

 

Bullies and dictators whose

decrees are sacrosanct 

What we eat, when we sleep

Where we go, where we can’t go

Who we meet, who we hate,

What we watch, what we can’t

What we spend, where we spend 

No matter small or big escapes

These tyrants of all proportions

 

Masters of theatrics

Anger, hate and jealousy

Blood, sweat and tears

Laughter that seems fake

Emotional wringers you are assured

As also fight and flight

 

Angels, princesses

The apple of our eyes,

Cherubic, light of our lives

Bah! All trickery and treachery! 

 

Insufferable know-it-alls

They always know what’s best 

for them and the world

Uncouth, unhygienic, uncivilised

 

Why, O Why? 

Are we resigned to this,

Why have we accepted 

this raw deal as the norm

 

And yet we are all ready

to live and die for them

to collect innumerable possessions

to join a rat race

to collect wealth for their future

to kill birds, animals and the planet

to fight with other humans

 

Humanity has been hoodwinked

into believing righteous nonsense

That we’re doing something great

Something that serves society

 

All that we are left with

are memories and nostalgia

photos and videos, the one place 

where they are always funny and cute

 

In our quest for the perfect

the perfect social image

we are ruining humanity

And ourselves to boot 

 

Enough of the opprobrium

For we can’t do much

When it comes to matters

Pertaining to those of love

 

That smile, that laughter

That melts your heart

That feeling of being loved

Humanity won’t be able to fight

 

And considering what it is

that I do for a living

Time for me to stop

Before I invite much opprobrium myself!

 

Disclaimer: No small tyrants were consulted in the crafting of this perspective, but their influence is undeniable, isn’t it?