It has almost been a week that Italy has gone into total lockdown. Witnessing the solidarity and unity that the whole country demonstrates in these difficult times is something I’ll treasure forever. Being refugee myself, this is not the most difficult time I’ve had to endure, but what we are living now reminds me the wisdom I had read from C.G.Jung. Now not quoting exactly, recalling from my memory.
When we think of good and bad, light and darkness, we associate peace with good/light and war with bad/darkness. We forget that good and bad are not static. They are dynamic and always exist together in us and everything surrounding us. When peace lasts too long, human memory tends to forget the bitter lessons of war. Humans forget what kind of tragedies ego-centric attitude and interest-driven greed can cause. So just by lasting too long, peace carries ‘bad’ agent, or ripens ‘Bad’.
On the contrary, War, being one of the worst and the most painful events that humans can experience, teaches an important lesson. The agony of tragedy makes us feel the pain of others. We learn Empathy, Trust, Alturism and Collaboration are the basics to survive. So as horrible as War is, it carries a good agent – it ripens ‘Good’.
While recent years had been marked with so much controversy everywhere, the danger of COVID2019 has drastically changed priorities and refreshed our latent memory – long forgotten after the world wars – individualism and ego-centric priorities are fine-tune luxuries that can be afforded in good times. In the end what matter in dark days for survival are Empathy, Trust in fellow man, Solidarity and Collaboration.
We’ve closed our doors in solidarity… not to separate… but to protect – ourselves and all those who want to survive just like us!
Stay in’n safe all.
