Holidays matter. People don’t

How we behave when our actions can endanger our fellow citizens says a lot about how we perceive them

I haven’t been on holiday since 2019. I had no idea the one I went on would be my last for a while, or I would probably have savoured it a little more. Earlier this week, however, I was told about the friend of a friend, who was currently on his fourth vacation over the last year. He couldn’t stand the idea of being cooped up in his apartment, apparently, and had opted for travel because that was what he felt he had to do. He had never spent a birthday at home, I was told in shock and surprise, and wasn’t going to let the minor inconvenience of a global pandemic get in the way. And so, he had packed his bags and taken off. I don’t know if he had access to newspapers on his trip or knew what was going on in India while he napped by a seashore, because he kept his feelings to himself.

There is no resentment when I type this, as much as there is resignation at how people look at the world. I can’t blame this person for doing what he did because millions of others made the exact same decision, in some form or another. Some decided to go on drives across the city with picnic bags tucked in vehicle boots, others moved to small towns and put the residents of those places at risk by becoming inadvertent carriers of a virus. Still others amplified their privilege by documenting their exploits on Instagram, oblivious to the real horror of people losing loved ones back home. They did this with smiles on their faces, and the slapping of backs.

It’s easy to blame celebrities for being divorced from reality or point fingers at those who break rules simply because they can. It’s harder to evaluate why so many behaved the way they did though, and isolate the underlying selfishness that elevated their wants and needs above everyone else’s. When we put ourselves over everyone and everything else, we risk bringing society down with us. Our inability to accept this lack of respect for people and the world is why we found ourselves in this situation in the first place.

We aren’t trained to empathise with people around us or look at ourselves as part of something larger. This insistence on focusing on our immediate needs, or the needs of family members over everyone else, starts to become a problem when it spreads across a country. It has all kinds of implications, and not just during a crisis. Our food habits as a race, for instance, have caused unprecedented damage to the world, triggering a series of actions that culminated in the appearance of the COVID-19 virus. All signs point to this changing absolutely nothing, because we refuse to learn from the past or present, irrespective of how compelling the lessons being taught by our planet have been.

When we do what feels right for us, or what makes us happy, we inadvertently put down someone else’s right to something. When we go on holiday, or avoid wearing a mask, we simultaneously put someone else in harm’s way without acknowledging it. This doesn’t necessarily make us bad human beings, but it says a lot about how we refuse to evolve as a unit. Our selfishness is tied to our ingrained belief that we are more important than everyone else, which, on a global scale, allows us to ravage our only home for profit and sleep peacefully at night with the mistaken belief that there can never be consequences.

Will we start to look at everyone rather than just ourselves when this is all over and we have managed to regain a tenuous hold over our lives again? I have my fingers crossed. All I can hope for is that there will be a bit of soul-searching, and a mild recognition of our place under the sun. Many of us will continue to go on holiday, make dubious life choices that cause damage, or behave as if this was all a bad dream. A few thousand changing their approach to life and living, however, can still lead to tangible change.

I intend to avoid going on holiday for another year if I can help it, and keep my mask on long after I get a vaccine. It may be a decision worth nothing in the long run, but tiny gestures can sometimes lead to powerful things. Look at what Greta Thunberg managed to do.

When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira

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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper

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