The careful sip of the slightly viscous dark hot liquid, the hesitant gulp down the throat. The instant rush of blood to the head. The dilation of the pupils, an increased awareness of the surroundings. I found myself sitting in the middle of a shopping mall in the Western world, on a courtesy couch for the tired or more importantly the less materialistically inclined who all but accompany those seeking instant gratification in fashion sourced from the sweatshops of the deep east. The flimsy coffee chain cup sat nimbly in my careful clutches steaming away in the early onset of winter. Hoardes moved helter skelter on the glossy tiled expanses moving from one brand to the other, as my mind in my now slightly buzzing, definitely dehydrated head for it was my 4th coffee of the day, raced from one thing to another fuelled by the lovely potent liquid in my hand. The excitation in my brain led me to question the paradoxes and ironies that exist in the world in which we thrive, with the uncanny human ability to block one stimuli to accept the convenient other and to live with that accepted bias, what I call forced ignorance.
The West is questionably safer, with its civility, and the one governing world organization catered to maintaining peace and order, complemented by the threat of nukes, and yet this system fails to protect even it's own when there's aggression from the delusioned successors of Soviet tzars, for these organizations at best can condemn for the fear of full blown war, and the risk of a nuclear attack at the hands of a perhaps hot headed, ego driven, careless decision maker.
The religious war that is in full throttle elsewhere for the right of a narrow strip of land rightfully owned by one people and claimed by another, has many spectators around the world, shocked on both sides, but again no action to help, fear of a world war again ruling the roost that allows for these smaller wars to run rampant - collateral for greater peace in the world. Policy and peace makers aim to put in a bandaid provisional solution, as they often do, on the current problem and see peace in going back to the same simmering nervous solution of co-existing and these sworn enemies sharing a border without agreement which is anything but peace, it's just an intermission in the continuity of tension between two factions who will continue to seek closure and finality to a problem they've unfortunately inherited.
At this juncture, still sitting stationary, looking at everything and everyone in the mall, but not looking at anything really, I feel a throbbing in my head, for I'm flying uninterrupted in my judgemental thoughts, the coffee succinctly interfering with the hormones in my recipient self, as the flurry of thoughts continue.
The jeans, the shimmering dresses, the shirts, the suits, the sneakers in the glimmering stores around me, all encouraging sustainability and fair trade of late in tune with the latest consumer fad, still directly or indirectly employ those below the poverty line in the congested multi stories in the thickets of deep Dhaka or in the basements in the far outskirts of Beijing; those who can all but dream of affording and wearing these clothes, if at all permitted by their religion and culture. The fashionably sustainable reuseable jute and cloth bags that they carry their purchases in, come from those same dingy bylanes where plastic, that is unindatedly choking our planet, is still the carrier of choice for it is dirt cheap and because it takes time for practices of sustainability to trickle down the economic stratum; the problems in these places remain primitively survivalistic, namely food and poverty for the inhabitants to even consider issues that don't pose a very visible imminent threat. Even for the middle class, who can afford to change their practices to move to a sustainable alternative suffer from a habit and convenience based inertia of using what's readily available.
My Americano served proudly in a compostable cup, that I relish without haste, too has a stirring reality, it's production marred by child labour, inhumane hours for its workers to just earn the minimum wage, to produce a cup of coffee that in my hands is now probably dearer than the day's earnings of those who laboured to get this glorious bean to fruition. The fast food chains, condensed conveniently in the mall, make their girthy loyalists all but fast, the beautiful waft of greasy goodness emanating unapologetically right through the wide expanses of the building, targeting shopping tired appetites; ironically some of these chains sponsor the athletic games where the fastest of humans run. In the supermarket at the end of the mall, with its aisle after aisle of plentiful over production, those feeling the pinch can only sustainably afford the extremely processed foods laden with all kinds of unnatural flavours and additives, and the freely growing natural vegetables, fruits and meat are sold to the affluent few at a profitable premium in the adjacent aisle. Shoes, clothes, food all made in the same factory, are sold at different price points, for brand, a recent invention of human intellect, dictates what is better, fashioneble, healthier and appropriate. People pick up brands that they associate with, through conditioning via cunning advertising, against generic or cheaper alternatives, identical in all terms, manufactured in the same factories even, except for the bold branding on their packaging, to feel societally appropriate, shelling out the extra hard earned penny, only for perceived superficial and no actual benefit. On the checkouts of the same supermarket that aggressively advertises the latest deluxe health foods, protein supplements and detoxing teas, lie sugar laden candies and saturated fat dripping crisps in clutching distance of little innocent prying hands to extract that last extra profit from human impulse.
Another, now lukewarm, sip, nearing the end of the cup, brought me back to the present. Life continued in the mall, the brands, the people, the smells, the smiles and the scowls. There is no respite from this conundrum against the inherent paradoxes that we live in, I realised; It's only appropriate that I too go back to my forced ignorance, to live in peace with the world, somthing even the governments of the world suffer from, and I'm all but a spoke in the wheel, and made a mental note to probably drink less coffee in the morning.