The Pakistani Spectator

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grownup we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability ….. To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L’Engle.

Someone asked a sage what part of the paper he read first. ‘The sports page’ was the answer. On being asked why, he replied: ‘It has our accomplishments; the front page is our failures’.

Read any newspaper, magazine or watch any program; there is one theme that is blatantly evident - the quest of vulnerability. Just like the paparazzi which, thankfully, our media at large is without, there is someone somewhere hoping to gets his hands on something that can be leveraged into a pay-check, career or opportunity. We seek vulnerability, not averse to even creating them, in others to justify what little we have accomplished in our own lives.

Unfortunately we live in a society where ‘no news is good news’ and ‘bad news about someone is good news’. In that particular quest, the society at large tends to focus on the negative. Ravaged with the negativity of strife and insecurity, we seemingly have started to dwell in a realm where vulnerabilities, if not present, are created.

In recent days we have seen an unending litany making a farce of a sacred tenet that is marriage. That the individuals (the lady being from the film industry) seem to revel in the ‘publicity’ thus gained signifies the mindset that seems to be enveloping us all.

Copycatting the West, as we tend to do for negative things only, some private channels have taken to air shows on the lines of Reality TV and Springer Shows. Here people and families are encouraged to tell their tales of woe. Furious wives and irked husbands accuse each other with wagging fingers and lashing tongues. The idea is not to reform but to cater to those of us who thrive on diatribes of this kind. If motivated by malice, commercial or personal gains, these portrayals take on an even uglier hue.

For some of us, the only way to demonstrate power is to create vulnerability and exploit it. This attitude is borne of fear and insecurity. Fear that we are not good enough, we have to drag someone down a notch to make ourselves look taller. Lilliputians thinking they can become giants while frolicking with a tied-to-the-ground Gulliver.

Hopefully at some point this will change. Personal weaknesses will stop being currency of material gains, upmanship and vendettas. The unbridled quest of vulnerabilities just breeds more negativity. This in turn leads to a dagger-drawn society numb to kindness and humility.

The crux of the issue is what defines values. Values are a foundation on which one sets his/her life. It is rare, if not impossible, that one does not falter in upholding the same. When we go digging for these failings, to smear an image or scandalize a name without fear, it shows how far we are from being a truly functional society. Like all other aspects of our lives, when honesty and humility are no longer our core beliefs, the society at large falters and eventually ceases to function.

We live in a time when it is easier to hate. Any chance of a sucker punch seems to capture the fancy of the majority. It is also a most worrisome trend that we have become a part of those who feed the frenzy of watching others stumble and fall.

Nurtured in this environment there is too much focus on finding faults. Taking personal responsibility of our own actions figures nowhere on our collective radars. The truth is we all have the capacity to achieve greater heights and make a difference in life. This, though, is not even remotely possible until we let go of the negative energy that fuels our lives and society and forces us to makes choices from a place of ultimate weakness - a place of fear.