On morality

We get taught at school that if we are to see injustice, we ought to stand up against it, defy it – Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Eddie Mabo – history is full of figures who declared they would not allow what is morally wrong to progress. We sit at the heels of these brave people and praise them, admire them. And yet, when the opportunity comes for us to rise as a collective and embody the same energy of these people to dispel injustice, we do nothing. We sit in our meekness, or victimhood, our ‘what ifs’; too scared to make a move lest we be persecuted. What truly matters? What is the tipping point – when does it become truly unbearable to stand on the side-lines and watch, and when do we go all in, tooth and nail, for what we believe in? We inherently know cruelty against a fellow human being is wrong. And yet, we do what we do to turn the cheek, justify it, somehow, to our ravaged souls so that we may sleep soundlessly at night. We seek to comfort ourselves and feel morally affirmed, and so believe that we couldn’t possibly be complicit in actions pervading to such despicable human behaviour. However, no matter how hard we try, this inner turmoil continues to lurk beneath the surface.

The consequence of this is the creation of elastic values. Stretching, stretching, accommodating what we used to think was wrong because it is too confrontational to say otherwise, stretching some more. But, at some point, we can go no further. The band must snap. We must usher in a new way of being. We must create trees out of our values – roots deep, branches high. Move with a breeze but ultimately rooted in our truth. Growing evermore upwards as we expand our horizons, whilst digging deeper towards new truths.

One day, there will come a point whereupon we have this stunning realisation: nothing changes if nothing changes. It may seem blatantly obvious to some. But we seem to have this strange belief that we can wish for and create a new future whilst still living out the same patterns, that somehow, all our desires will be handed to us on a platter, and our fears and worries whisked away from us on another. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Our moral duty comes knocking and we must answer. We have an instinctual obligation to do good to our fellow human being, to cause no harm. Rumi wisely said ‘if you cause injury to someone, you draw that same injury toward yourself.’ Thus, we are propelled evermore so to sever the repetition of malice, and to replace it with kindness. We realise our power in doing this, and we say with joy: nothing changes if nothing changes. We are the harbingers of change. We are the ones who will be remembered in history for upholding our fellow human beings to the moral code of all that is good and true. We are the ones who will carve the path ahead out of compassion.