I try my best to keep out of issues that have any social relevance. It keeps me out of conscience clean for not having offended anyone. As far as my views on how things ought to go, are upstream to conventional wisdom. Moments before I started writing this post, I saw a bunch of photos uploaded by a friend of mine on Facebook. This friend, and many of my other college friends had recently made a trip to a facility that cares and nurtures children with mental disabilities. I never understood why I clicked the link to these photos. It is probably because in one of the photos that was on the tile of the photo album, I saw the most beautiful lady I've known for the past 4 years of my college life. And yes, her photo was damn beautiful! Goodness!
But wait a second. I'm a bit tired of writing the same rant over and over again. I went through all the photos in the album, saw the beautiful lady more number of times than I could have asked for. But then, something struck me. It was the kids. Their faces just wiped my beautiful lady's face off my mind. I'd just realized that shit had hit the fan. These kids, all of them, had some form of incurable mental disability. No! They're not special! These kids are NOT FUCKING SPECIAL!! It's a bloody lie! It's the human attempt to mollycoddle our lies, because that's what we do best. We don't want to tell the truth. We don't even want to hear the truth! Any time we are faced with something we can't handle, we mince our words and make things sound like everything is fine. Sorry folks, it's not! I might get beaten up for what I said, and what I'm going to say. But I'll take my chances...
What are we out to prove, when we go and spend a few hours of our lives with these "special" children? Mind you, I'm not being condescending, despite my tone suggesting that I am. A few moments of sympathy, a few tears shed, and then WHAT? These kids don't need sympathy! They don't even need a single soul's empathy. Both, sympathy and empathy have no meaning for them.. Besides, showing sympathy is probably the worst kind of treatment you can give to any soul. But we feel sorry for them, for their fate. Their mothers, they don't smile out of any form of happiness. Their smiles are a form of helplessness. That's all they are left with. Their tears ran dry long ago. So all they do is smile, smile at their own helplessness. For laughter will sap them of the little energy that remains within. They see their child, contorted, and still bear hollow hopes of some miracle that will fix a piece of their own heart. But alas, they know for themselves, that is not going to happen.
And we? We think that we are doing "Social service" by playing with these kids for a few moments. Agreed, we have only purest of intentions in our hearts when we volunteer to engage in such programs. Sadly, contrary to our belief, we don't make the lives of these children, nor their parents any easier when we visit them. As a matter of fact, we only make them realize their misery.
The kids, quite honestly don't have a future. They will remain in the society as a pitiful and painful body to their parents, and more so, to themselves, in the case that these children realize what's in store for them, which I'm sure they do.
The solution that popped-up in my mind is what scares me more. Instead of watching these souls wither away, without a purpose for themselves, why not put an end to their misery? Why not put them into their final slumber?
Sad part is that the humanitarian in each one of us will rise to the occasion and say...
"What right do we have to take the life of another man?"
To that, I have a question in response. What are these kids doing? What are they going to do? And how on the planet do you think these kids will survive? That too, without causing inconvenience to themselves and to their parents? I frankly don't bother how the people around these children will behave, for they only have pity in their hearts. But wouldn't it be a bit more easier for the parents to sleep at night with a bit of peace in their hearts, that maybe, their kid's soul is at peace? That, instead of living with the piercing pain they feel every time they look into the eyes of their child, who, they know, is fighting a lost battle?
I'd wholeheartedly agree that I'm the most heartless of souls, who simply sits behind a screen, and types away whatever comes to mind. But consider this. Why sprinkle salt on fresh wounds, then allow them to dry, attack the healing site, and then sprinkle salt again? That too, when you know that you'll do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again? Might as well cut the limb off, than see the limb rot...
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