I thought I would share this essay that I wrote for class. Kind of interesting. I did kinda merge two of my past posts with this essay.
Catastrophes and disasters impact humans greatly. From every devastating event there is a new set of understanding that arises-our comprehension and our empathy. The whirlwind of emotions, the devastation that is left afterwards, and the eventual forgetfulness of the event all have an influence on how one changes as a person or as a nation.
Humans are emotional beings. We cry. We fear. We laugh. When faced with adversities-we try to overcome them, but sometimes there just isn’t a way to overthrow them. Sometimes we can’t escape, and all that is left is to wait for death. We go down fighting, we go down in fear, or we go down with acceptance. We are all human-breakable, fleeting, and fragile. We strive to be our best. We fight to be better. We conquer, we plunder, and we all eventually come to an end. Some of us perish much sooner than others. Natural disasters, disease, murder, self-loathing….we are filled with incomprehensible thoughts and emotions. We are all insecure, and we have moments of weakness. No one is perfect. No one is invincible. We are all trying to live life to the fullest. We are all trying to survive, but there will be an end- no matter how much we may wish to delay it. The fear of death is outstanding in this world. When we hear about disasters or catastrophes around the world we feel a wave of compassion overcome us. There is also the feeling of relief because we are glad that it isn’t us in such a situation. Then there is the guilt for feeling relief. What makes us so special? What makes us so different from those who have perished? Why are we still living? When there is war-we want to survive. When there are floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and avalanches, we want to survive. When there is disease, we want to survive. We go as far as avoiding and shunning those who are sick, like in A Journal of The Plague Year: “for all that could conceal their distempers did it, to prevent their neighbours shunning and refusing to converse with them….” (Defoe 5). We want to survive. Our prime instinct when faced with danger is survival-fight or flight (we either run to escape or we stand and try to fight the outcome). In the book Pompeii, Ampliatus refuses to leave Pompeii because he believes it is just another earthquake that will come to pass like the one before then. “They would stay, and they would endure” (Harris 235). Ampliatus will stand and fight. He will not flee. Our emotions dictate us. We feel empathy. We feel the dread. We feel the inevitable doom that surrounds us, yet we fight to survive. We don’t want to give up. We fear the unknown, and we are not ready to venture into that world. There are so many emotions that accompany a disaster or catastrophe. We feel for the people affected. We want to help in the most primal of ways. We want to restore and remember what has happened. We don’t want to forget because we know that something similar might happen in the future, and we all want to be remembered in some way or another. We learn from these disasters. We learn about our rampant emotions. We learn about mercy. We learn about what we want for ourselves before death. When we experience death, we want to keep on living-keep on fighting. We want to persevere no matter what odds are against us.
The aftermath of a disaster or catastrophe leaves us with hope. Hope that we will be able to rebuild, and be back to where we once were. Humanity has suffered through many catastrophic events-wars, natural disasters, genocides, and corruptions-, yet here we remain still standing. We are unified in one way or another. We are the same species. Granted we have different dialects, looks, and opinions, but there is hope within us that make us believe in one another. We come to each other’s aid. When something strikes one of us, there is relief to be sent. We send out rescue teams, food, water, and first aid. We keep ourselves anchored to each other. In the end of the book Pompeii, “Miraculous, too, were the tales of survival. A blind slave was said to have found his way out of Pompeii… (Harris 298).” We as humans have hope that not everything will perish. We have hope that there will be survivors. Hope that things will go back to normal when it is all over. We don’t want to believe that such events can wipe out civilization. We are left confused about our inhibitions-our religion, our God, our freedom. Why has this happened? Why has there been so much suffering? What have we done wrong? Such thoughts are normal after horrifying misfortunes. Our belief in God may lead us to think that God is the one that is punishing us for being so sinful, yet such devastation can be said to be unclear. If God really loved us, then he wouldn’t result to such tribulations, right? Why? Why has this happened then? We are left in the unknown. We are left with wonder. Wonder at how much destruction has affected us so much. We begin to rebuild, and we begin to acknowledge the power of nature and the power of the unknown. So may theories, stories, and facts arise from the ashes of the ruins, and who is to say that some of these aren’t true? What can we rely on to be true? In the end, we end up believing what we want. In the end, we are glad to be alive. We are glad to rebuild. We are glad to have survived. We are grateful, and we hope that things will be much better now that the adversity is over with. We are hopeful towards what the future might bring.
There is always the fear of moving forward. How will we change? How will we evolve from this? Will we like what we become? Everyone changes it’s an undeniable part of life. No matter how much we try to conceal change, it will always be there. We are shaped by experiences and time. We are malleable, and a lot of things/events/memories shape us. We like to forget about the turbulent times. We like to remember the blissful, mirthful moments of life. “It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all apprehensions, and that too fast; indeed we were no more afraid now to pass by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a doth wrapt around his, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were frightful to the last degree, but the week before” (Defoe 148). We don’t like to remember the afflictions, and we prefer to put them out of mind-out of sight. We forget why we have striven to live more. Hasn’t the fact that we’ve seen so many afflictions changed us? Why have we forgotten? We don’t like to remember. We don’t like to know what we are capable of. In order to survive there must have been some wrongdoings. We might have stolen. We might have lied. We might have pushed people to their deaths-this might have been unintentional, but it was done. In those moments of panic we might have changed who we like to think we are. Are we noble? Are we willing to help others? The residual guilt that wants to be forgotten remains because deep down we know that we could’ve done something to help. Someone else could still be living if we hadn’t been so selfish. Why were we, in that moment of time, so transfixed with our own survival? We like to forget. We don’t want to feel shame or guilt because we survived. We survived, and they didn’t…nothing more and nothing less. Don’t look beneath the underneath because it’s not like that in this case. There is no gray area. There is only black and white-death and survival. We like to forget because sometimes it is easier to forget. Sometimes it’s easier to forget than to accept that there were such despicable and tedious choices to be made. We forget because we don’t want to think of the possibility that something like this could happen again.
Catastrophes, disasters, genocides, and wars are only the tip of the iceberg. So many different events can shape us-mold us. We are human. We make mistakes-some are deplorable and some are righteous. We feel. We think. We move on. Sometimes we move on for selfish reasons, and sometimes we move on because we are living for more than one person now. Whatever the reason is, we move on, but we never forget completely. Events are recorded in the history books, and they are told throughout time. As an individual we can forget, but as a nation-as a species our history is written and it won’t be forgotten that easily.
Timafa 