Wise Old Women in times of war
Boyish games that are destroying our world
What makes us tick? Is it one thing, or is it a lot of things? There are some of us who rarely tick. We pass on like leaves on a placid lake. We exist without effect. Then there are those that keep ticking, some dangerously so like an Atomic bomb, like Putin or Oppenheimer, people who are on the move and surging forward, gushing through irrespective of the consequences. On a spectrum between a placid leaf on a lake to Oppenheimer-level madness, we find our space. Sometimes these forces can be for the good, but those who gush do not have the time to pause and reflect. It is those of us who are the placid leaves who then become stems and then trees that reflect on such things.
Our culture glorifies such madness, we have to be in a rush, we have to look eternally young and we have to want material things that take away our insecurities. We have to be the ones that speak the most and are the ones that are most admired. We have to leave a mark even if it means making weapons of mass destruction.
We are in the new age of hustle culture, juggling around multiple balls without asking why. We are told to rush with phrases like “ You snooze, you lose”. Our work has to be quick and it has to keep shifting with the times. Like we are drug dealers who can get caught at any moment.
But amidst the hustle we need to find focus, laser-like, cutting through the layers of work and arriving at the pithy core. And then you might become the next Oppenheimer, produce a weapon of mass destruction, and get fancy job titles like Co-ordinator of Rapid rupture
On the other hand, you could be a tree in a forest, with stable and growing roots. On the surface, it might look like you aren’t doing anything, but being rooted in an ever-changing world you have the power of vision of looking at the past to predict the future.
History books might not have a lot about such people. People who hold places together by their presence. Trudging along with depths of knowledge while the world around them hustled and moved on to the next shiny thing
A tree-like character was missing in the Oppenheimer film. Someone who could see the future without actually bombing it. Maybe it had to be a woman, an old one at that, and wise as well. The race to the exploration of the atomic bomb felt like a boy’s game gone wrong. As children boys are always bombing each other, haven’t seen many girls do it. This urge to bomb your brothers if left unchecked can lead to a boy turning into Putin with ghastly real-world consequences.
But would a wise old woman have any power in the world against boys wanting to bomb each other? Never heard of that in the history books.
Maybe someone did talk sense into these boys at some point in time and maybe we have averted a catastrophe but disaster saved does not have the same media appeal as nuking Japanese towns to show who is the bigger man/country.
But there are some who survived these fires and went on to tell their stories. Here is one from young girls at the time of the atomic bombing who carry the stories deep in their hearts
Peace is the same everywhere in every household in every country and in every religion. Women understand it a bit better than men as they have been peacekeepers for centuries. If we listen to the experts we can prevent another Russia-Ukraine, another Afghanistan, and another African conflict. But we let the boys fight and set the house on fire. The old woman sees the house being consumed in the fire as she herself is engulfed. The old tree burns to ashes.
