The answer to this question is “of course not!” However, the issues that we are faced with are extremely challenging, and it makes one wonder why we are experiencing such sociological, political, economic, and personal pain. These seem like problems we would face in hell. Many people question if the reality we live in leads to the thought: is earth hell?
The following is an example of our collective inability to cope due to human disfunction. Currently, there are 13 major wars happening around the world today. Out of those, the newest ones are the Myanmar civil war, triggered shortly after a military coup in February 2021, and the war in Ukraine that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Seven of these conflicts are in Asia, including sectarian violence in Iraq following the pullout of the U.S. in December 2017, and Syria’s complicated civil war. Five of these conflicts are on the African continent. 24/7 Wall St, in order to determine which countries are currently at war, utilized Global Conflict Tracker, a tool created by the Center for Preventative Action, a global conflict policy think tank. Out of the conflicts the tracker lists, they only included those that are active wars.
Famine is also visiting our global home. According to an Oxfam International online article, about 30 million people are experiencing alarming hunger, severe levels of food insecurity and malnutrition in northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen.10 million of them are facing emergency and famine conditions.
Politically, chaos is reigning its ugly head everywhere: there are world leaders who are seemingly attempting to turn our world into their own personal possessions by adopting authoritarian postures. Russia is trying to grab land from the Ukraine; genocide is actually taking place in Gaza, where the Palestinians are experiencing it at the hands of Israel. Ironically, Israel, the nation that lost at least 6-million citizens during the World War II Nazi purge, is now being accused of doing the same thing to the Palestinians.
Basically, all over the world people are dying, seemingly by the boatloads and mostly at the hands of other human beings. Hatred can be seen everywhere, and a lot of people are losing faith in the notion of spirituality and religion. A growing number are convinced that God doesn’t exist; that selfishness is alright; that they can get away with greed, murder, mayhem, and more. Some people point to increasing problems related to climate change, and in order to justify their actions to ignore spirituality, ask why, if God exists, would we be faced with that obstacle.
The problem is that people don’t realize that humanity is creating its own hell! Man’s inhumanity to man is the chief culprit. A lot of what we are experiencing could be avoided if we would change our attitudes toward each other. Men and women are challenged by misogyny issues; racism is rampant; poverty is a giant obstacle; there are unbelievable attacks on the homeless, and more! Moreover, inequality based on the fact that billionaires are attempting to call the shots while the rest of the people suffer creates real problems.
What is probably a root cause of all of our ills is our reluctance, no, seeming inability, to see the bigger picture, which would include something that the current president of the United States refuses to understand; it is our diversity that is key to our success. We ignore the fact that we ALL contribute important elements to life on Earth.
Imagine that the planet is like our bodies; what if the eyes decided that they didn’t like the ears, or that the heart didn’t want to share space with the lungs? This is what we’re experiencing. We wouldn’t be able to exist if that diversity is rejected. Case in point, think of how boring and non-productive America would be without the diversity generated by Black people!
Essentially, we are experiencing pain because of our own actions; we are creating our own version of hell. We must turn this situation into the heaven of cooperation in order to stop our slide into destruction. If we don’t change, we have only ourselves to blame! Aluta continua!