While business drives human lives, nature drives the lives of birds and animals. All live on the same planet. It is the inescapable influence of business that has changed our routine. The change in our routine makes our life completely business-dependent, in one or the other way. Are we aware of this sinister reality?
Every living being maintains a daily routine. Animals and birds are more punctual in maintaining their daily routine than the brainier humans, who are now totally business-dependent. Without timepieces and external help, birds and animals do their work, sensing a precise time for each of their works. They maintain a strict natural diet plan and never need a nutritionist to help them maintain good health.
But more sophisticated, brainy and civilized humans require a timepiece and diet plan, maybe because of their disruptive behavior. We tend to revolt against what is forbidden. We love to taste what is unhealthy and illicit. We have a huge business built around our tastes and preferences. That business is growing faster.
The human nature of revolt is not the only factor that makes humans sicker than animals and birds, but the business that thrives on our changing needs. I have never seen a bird meeting with an accident in its natural way of life without being trapped by humans. Animals seek only natural remedies for all their problems – may it be sickness or hunger. Animals have neither business ecosystem nor prospects for it in their world. That makes them live a natural way of life with discipline. They enjoy a safer life until humans disrupt them.
We all know junk foods are bad for our health. But the junk food business is worth billions now because of our crazy run for it. It is growing fast as the per capita income keeps rising, and the economy is growing. We have strict food safety regulations. Every food package carries safety information. Most of us never read it. Every intake accompanies enough toxins too. The toxins that go inside our body would remain inside the body until the system flushes it out. But how would the system flush it out if we do not live by the order of nature? We depend on an inorganic system for treating the toxins within the body. Humans eat every day and intake more calories. Naturally, we have to burn the excess amount. We know the natural way of burning it, but we are more comfortable with the unnatural way of shedding flab. Other living beings also eat whenever they are hungry, keeping them off the worry of fat building in their body. While humans consume processed food, other animals have no known food processing system. They pick up only what is directly consumable. The other living beings’ natural way of eating makes them safer from all illnesses while humans’ inorganic way of processing food rewards them with sickness.
Again, sickness also opens huge vistas for the growth of many businesses other than the healthcare business. In the market economy, creations and solutions to all problems trace their root in one or the other business. Who is to be blamed for it? None but ourselves. Somewhere in the course of history, we stumbled upon a fascinating turn, making us take a deviated path.
India has a rich tradition that tells us how to live a healthy life with discipline. Our ancestors practiced it and taught us life. But commercialization allured us to change our way of life and take a deviated path of modernity. Since then we began to run after fascinating things.
Now there is a multi-billion business behind everything we use and consume. From maternity to geriatric clinics and from home to graveyard, business drives everything in our lives, thanks to the irresistible influence of the Western world where the funeral business worth several billions of dollars is close to three times the size of maternity business.
(Sajikumar is a Mumbai based blogger and author)
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