The Different Aspects of Change:

Gayathri Arvind

19/UECA/008

From time immemorial, the only thing that has been constant in our civilization is ‘change’. The technological prowess or the social progress that we have today is all a result of change. But change has never come easily. We like comfort and stability and therefore we all suffer from something called the “status quo bias”. The “status quo bias” is when people prefer things to stay absolutely the same or choose to stick with a previously made decision just because it provides a sense of comfort or stability.

When suffragettes marched for the right to vote, many men and even women weren’t willing to join them. In one way, I think it stemmed from the fact that humans are terrified by the notion of change. Who will take care of the household if women are given the right to vote and then become independent? The whole structure would collapse, wouldn’t it? People would have once reacted to electricity like we are reacting to artificial intelligence right now. Will it destroy the world? When people fought to abolish unjust and horrifying institutions like slavery and casteism, some said that it’ll never change because that is the way things have always been. But through movements across the world led by people who refused to choose apparent stability over justice, old orders collapsed paving way for new ones to be formed.

Sometimes, humans perceive diversity and different opinions as “change” as well. We fear that our “identities are being threatened ” and sometimes that leads to us detest anything that is even slightly different from the homogeneous bubble that we have formed in our heads. This sentiment is also exploited by leaders in power who create an “us” versus “them” narrative to get people to elect them. I feel that our fear of change plays a definite role in anti-immigration attitudes, homophobia, sexism and many other issues that we see in society today. Sometimes, we all feel comfortable living in our own little echo-chambers. Anything that we do not perceive as “normal” is immediately a threat to us. But how much better would it be if we all realise that we are so much more than the labels we give ourselves? Underneath it all, aren’t we all just flesh and blood?

Every period has its own iconic moments that are etched in the minds of those who lived through it. Recently, I was watching a video of the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany coming down in 1989. The Wall was built during the Cold War as a means to stop the people from the East escaping to the West. That structure split families and created a divide that many thought could never be reconciled. But, it did happen. And when it did, the people from the West climbed over to greet their Eastern neighbours. Families were reunited after years of separation. The streets were full of people welcoming their neighbours from the “other side”. The barrier of ideological difference finally came tumbling down, when no one expected it to. In one of the videos, a West German remarked that if someone had slept for 7 weeks, they wouldn’t believe all the changes that were happening! An old gentleman with a tired smile on his face said that he had always hoped to see his country reunited again. This is one of the many massive changes that happened in the recent past, but all I knew about it was from a page in a history book. In my memory, Germany was a single country and anything to the contrary was quite confusing to imagine. But seeing the emotions that people went through and the impact that that particular moment had, made me realise what an important change it was! After I watched that, I also wondered if the same would ever happen with North and South Korea. That change seems impossible right now but maybe it’ll happen someday. Who knows?

This year has been full of unprecedented changes. So many families have lost their loved ones. Almost 10 million people in our country alone have lost their jobs and the economy is in shambles. People all over are trying to adapt to the new normal. Amidst this, there is also a climate change crisis that is slowing destroying lives. The free market isn’t making us any freer. Constantly chasing GDP numbers and growth at the expense of our limited natural resources is suffocating the planet that we live in one day at a time. One part of the world generates food and other wastes in billions of tonnes while the other side starves. All of these are solvable issues with better allocation of resources and better policy measures but the geopolitical barriers that we have built amongst ourselves make it all seem so unsolvable.

We need to learn to distinguish between progress and change. Our increased dependency on the virtual world at the expense of interpersonal relationships, the increasing income gap and the increasing waste that is being generated due to our recent lifestyle modifications aren’t exactly “good changes”. We need to work on them and become better. But some other changes are absolutely amazing! Some people are brave enough to fight for what is right and are slowly paving the way to form a more just and equitable society. I hope more of us join in. Sometimes, change can bring happiness; help people express their true self and foster acceptance and love. But it can happen only if we let it and I hope we do. A few years down the lane when children read about this year in history books, wouldn’t it be cool to be remembered as the generation that decided to fight to change for the better? Maybe that’s being too optimistic but it is still worth a try.