A Happy New Year to the Human Race

Hello there! So, you were just browsing the net and came across my blog.. Thanks for staying back and reading it. I hope the title of my blog has intrigued you. Just before you think I am a visitor from outer space, or from one of the moons of Jupiter, let me assure you that I consider myself human. Unfortunately, I find that the real human race is fast becoming extinct.
Why do I think so?
Before I defend my stance, let me ask you to participate in a simple exercise-please do. Thank you.
I want you to take a paper and a pen, and write down the number of times in the past week that you were genuinely kind to a stranger. If you think buying presents for loved ones ( evenly remotely 'loved' as in friends, acquaintances etc.) was an act of kindness, then think again. The only two reasons that people give presents/gifts duing the Christmas period is because: a) They think they are expected to, and b) they got a good deal ( on the present/gift)!
For most people, the days of giving a present or a gift to commemorate the birth of The Son of God are now as distant as the white clouds on the horizon, slowly floating away from you.
If you cannot think of the last time you were genuinely kind towards a stranger in the last week, I want you to go back by a fortnight, a month, and so on till you can remember.
Now that that is done and dusted, I want you to participate in another exercise:
I want you to think of the last time when you saw a person, and thought: '' There goes ( or comes) another human being'', and write it down.
The answer may surprise you: there is a distinct possibility that you may not have an answer. Why is that so?
It is because we are no so engrossed whether someone is a man, a woman or a child, white or a black, or a caucasian, an oriental or a hispanic, or whether he/she looks like a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew that our collective psyche has forgotten that we are actually looking at another of Nature's miracles: a Human being!
In the journey from infancy through youth to old age, we are so preoccupied with peoples' origins, their beliefs and their cultural practices, that we have forgotten that we are looking at another of our own human selves. In this day and age, we are redefining the meaning of both 'day' and of 'age' as we know them to be. Let me explain:
From the evolutionary point of view, sunset heralded a time to rest and of winding down of the day's activities and yet, here we are, in 2010, where we actually have night-shifts, and graveyard shifts for many workers, and this whole circadian rhythm that the human body is used to, is now topsy-turvy thanks to the demands of our society, demands that we have made of each other. 'Age' is no longer relevant in our society- no one is considered to be wise just becuase they tend to be older ( and perhaps rightly so), but we now see it to be unfashionable to be thought of ageing. I would congratulate the Cosmetic industry for so deftly and mesemerisingly brain-washing our collective psyche that not many of us would tolerate those wrinkles on our collective foreheads, or those crows-eyes around our eyes. No ,they are not the signs of ageing anymore- they are sings that we 'do not look after ourselves properly', and that we should, and hey ho- they ( the cosmetic industry has an answer for that). I never understood why they lie to us using fancy numbers and get away with it. To cite an example, ''19 women among 22 found xxxx to be really useful!'', and therefore we should use it too. Ok, I am happy for those 19 women, but I am more interested in knowing WHY your xxxx product did not work on the other 3 women but you are not going to tell me that, are you? Also, statistically speaking, the sample size of the women/men tested in these ads is so ridiculous that a stiatistician would probably use the quoted data as tissue paper, or far worse. Scientifically, you can never prove ( or disprove) anything with the kind of sample sizes the cosmetic industry quotes.
So, in today's world, it is not fashoinable to grow old. Nor is it fashionable to smile at strangers. If you do so, it is either because you are a pervert or you are probably crazy, or perhaps a bit of both.
We all are so tied up in knots within our own minds, with our own thoughts of ''I'', ''me'', Mine'', that we have neither the time nor the inclination to think of other Human beings. That is what makes this whole idea of saving the planet laughable. How can we save other species when we cannot think of ourselves as human beings in the collective? We need to remember that we share the planet, and not own it.
The day we realise that, and are a bit more open to the thought that we are all humans, would be the first day of the first new year in a new millineum, and to see the dawn of such a day, I need your help.
I request, nay, beg you to do the following for the next day, and see for yourself if that makes a difference:
a) SMILE, not only at people you know, but even at strangers. In fact, I urge you to smile at anything and everything: your car ( imagine the places you would not go without it), your pencil ( what would you write with if you didnt have it? A pen, did you say-well then, smile at your pen ;-)), the trees around you that give you the oxygen, the snowflake on your window as it slowly trickles down as it transforms into a tiny rivulet of water- did it not remind you of your last holiday in winter, or perhaps it has paradoxically reminded you of the warm summer months). Keep smiling, and dont bother about what others think- people who think you are crazy are missing out on the simplest of Life's pleasures, the ability to smile.
Once we all do that, we will FEEL and therefore BE happy from the inside, and in our exterior world asthe world that we create for ourselves is but a mirror-image of our world within.

More tomorrow..... and keep that SMILE GOING, My human friend and co-habitant of this beautiful planet......