In the popular television series “The Walking Dead” there is a character in season 6 called Eastman, a forensic prison psychiatrist. His job in the pre-zombie apocalypse era was to clinically assess grave criminals to decide whether they would repeat their offence if released or not. One of the prisoners, whom he reported as not ready to be released, got out of prison somehow and killed his wife and two young children, then surrendered to the police voluntarily.
Enraged and grief-stricken, Dr. Eastman kidnapped the prisoner, took him to a remote house in the forest to lock him within bars and watch him starve to death.
He subsequently explains the ‘cycle of grief’ very eloquently to another key character Morgan. Because you experienced a tragic event in your life violently, even though you try to move on and get away from it by choosing different options, you always circle back to the same place in your mind and experience the violence over and over again without any peace.
The cycle of grief becomes a cycle of violence.
You resign yourself to the fact that you may never get away and stop trying to find doors that will let you out. But giving up should not be an option. Eventually, you will find peace and as long as one person remains hopeful, ‘humanity is not lost and the world has not ended.’ Dr. Eastman explained his theory by recalling how after watching the killer of his family starve to death for 47 days, he still could not find peace of mind. That’s when he realized that every life is precious and everything in this world is about people, that killing is not the solution, and only then he was able to feel peaceful.
The compelling mantra to accept everyone, to protect everyone, to create peace, is the only way you can protect yourself, he tells Morgan.
In these times of escalating violence across the world when we are on the brink of what seems to be another world war, this could be an invaluable life lesson for all of us. The circle of violence, grief, more violence, and more grief has become so vicious that we don’t even know which came first – the grief or the violence. Who started this fight? And why? Do we remember when it started? Who is fighting whom?
The turmoil seems to be never ending and rancorous with many different layers. For someone like me with a multicultural background (born in India, ‘upper caste’ Hindu, American citizen) I feel daunted by the acrimony that I see around me – whites versus blacks, republicans versus democrats, republican Christians versus Muslims, Hindus versus Muslims, upper caste Hindus versus lower caste Hindus, moderate Muslims versus extremist Muslims, left liberals versus right wingers, and so on. Gun violence in America has escalated to chilling levels – more people died due to guns in America this year than killed by terrorists all over the world.
Personally, I have been pulled into many heated discussions that have ended without any problem solving and I find myself often feeling agitated and confused. Simple words have started to become a raging controversy. Opinions are being labeled as intentional statements meant to incite hostility and ill-will. Those who keep silent get blamed for not taking a stance. Those who speak out are blamed for taking sides. There is no middle ground. Random acts of violence are given a religious or racial context, provoking the most tolerant people to say or do things that they would not do normally. In their own contextual setting, everyone seems to have a point. So is everyone right? How is that possible? Am I the one who is wrong? That is disturbing but possible.
To top it all, constant terror threats have frightened people of all religions, caste, color, and creed. Security warnings are quickly becoming a daily phenomenon. Don’t travel, stay away from crowds, be on high alert, watch-out. The fallout is far-reaching – we are living in a world that is constantly on edge, a tinderbox that can erupt into flames with the tiniest spark. I will be watching the Christmas parade from the safety of my home this year rather than getting lost in the crowd. The joy of living is fading away and we are slowly but surely being reduced to existing.
I fear we may be summarily relegated to purely surviving, just like the characters of “The Walking Dead.”
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