Death of human variants — Our last hope. Kinchit Bihani
A human is still born, a human still dies, but sadly humans no longer live on Earth; this is no science fiction, no distant future, no mere imagination, this is present, bizarre and unfathomable as it may seem, and has been the present for thousands of years now; present that just represents a tiny fraction (just around 1%) of human-evolution-history, which, in turn, is Lilliputian compared to Earth’s history.
So, what happens in this present?
In this present, metamorphosis of a special kind takes place inside a human, beautifully painted with his mother’s pure blood when he first arrives on Earth, unaware of the impurities that awaits him: his body transforms, matures, and evolves according to the laws of nature, but his mind transforms, matures and evolves according to the laws of human society. Nothing like what happens in other living creatures.
Who is behind this metamorphosis?
Human variants already present in the Earth’s environment.
What is the mechanism behind this metamorphosis?
The growing up human comes in contact with mutated humans, who now see themselves as variants of the original human (the one God had sent): as a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or another religion mutant; as an American, Latino, Japanese, African, Indian, refugee or another national or regional mutant; as super-rich, rich, poor, middle-class, or another economic class mutant; as a black or white or brown or dark coloured or another skin colour mutant, left-wing or right-wing or centre-left or centre-right or another political mutant and so on so forth. Permutations and combinations take place resulting in humans with single, double or multiple mutations. A poor, brown coloured, left Indian Christian; a super- rich, white coloured, right-wing American Jew; middle-class, dark coloured, centre left Latino Muslim and hundreds and thousands of others evolve to become the alpha, beta, delta and other variants of the human family.
Variants or self-appointed custodians of a group of like-minded variants tell the human, still emotionally fictile, wisdom deprived, how these very mutations will define him in the future, will give him a sense of belongingness and security, will make him part of a community, will make him stand out from the masses and other starry promises. The human looks into the mirror, looks himself through the eyes of others, looks inside him, and looks at the world through the eyes of variants, and accepts the dictum. He begins to transform into a variant.
But what happens then?
Nothing what the human-turned-variant expected. Rivalry follows. Variants compete to become the dominant strain. Stereotyping sets in, differences creep in, prejudice takes a stronghold, ideologies weigh in, hate drives them apart, armies of variants emerge over time. The variants meant to be markers of identity become variants of serious concern. The human inside these variants fade into the background, and they head to battleground: religious wars; racial tensions; economic inequality, precursor to other inequalities; political rivalry, border conflicts and more, far lethal than the Covid-19 variants circulating amongst them.
Remember here, humans do not kill one another, it is the variants that kill one another — tarnish one another with the impure blood that now flows inside them.
In the recorded history of human variants, the past few centuries have proven to be gold, a spurt of prolific growth. The situation as it stands now is: once humans created these variants, now these variants create humans — but only for worse.
It is natural to think how these variants developed, evolved and grew so strong, what drove their spread. Understanding history is important to unearth solutions for the future, looking dark and doubtful, but it seems unlikely that it would help humans’ cause as human-variants are now programmed to only fight over history, even when they have the power to create it. There are pressing questions for the few, leftover humans to deal with: how will these variants further evolve in the future, will they become deadlier, is there a vaccine for these variants and many more.
What’s next, then?
In an optimistic scenario, these variants would voluntarily reconcile and adopt the singular path of humanity again. In a pessimistic scenario, these variants will rather choose to die, taking their differences along with them into their graves. In a more realistic scenario, nature would give them at least a chance to adapt, before deciding on their fate.
Human variants are being confronted with a realistic scenario these days.
Covid-19 came into the lives of human variants with the message: no one can be safe until everyone is safe, leaving the variants with no choice but to join hands, to act, to deliver a win for humanity. I personally saw glimpses of such a win, while caring for my Covid positive elderly father in a city government hospital, under-staffed, under-resourced, under-pressure: a young, slim doctor desperately and continuously pressing for an old heart to speak up again, until the moment his fellow doctors intervened and lead him away; dog-tired medical staff, on their toes during an entire shift, unplugging a heavy oxygen cylinder from a just dead patient, carrying it on their shoulders and delivering it to a dying patient; a woman in her fifties, filled with mountain of cough inside her, taking off her oxygen mask to issue an SOS call for an old lady, unattended, gasping for oxygen and lying on a bed next to her; well-wishers of one patient voluntarily coming forward to share lessons that might prove life-saving with others for free. No race, no religion, no political party, no ethnicity, no variants came in between them. They were united in pain. They understood the language of pain. Pain, a feeling that almost everyone detests, was doing an amazing job: it was bringing people closer, when they were not meant to.
I saw heaven in hell, where humanity was blooming, variants were dying, and a new beginning was being made. Humanity towering high above humans, on the shoulders of humans. The sad part was leaving the hospital, and re-entering the world I had forgotten about, where I witnessed human variants make a return before my eyes, on televisions, in conversations, in news, on social media.
Time has flowed since then, and will continue to flow; it is human variants that need to catch up. Maybe human variants might get a few more chances. Climate Change very much looks to be human variants’ next big chance (nation, political and economic variants and maybe others are expected to play a major role), nature helping the human race in their cause: to avoid a total collapse of human civilization and human’s humanity.
TIME will tell who will win: human variants or the leftover human inside them.
My book (below) generally appeals to Earthlings who worry about the state of the world we live in and want to make a difference.
