A Generation Incapable Of Loving

In our near distant past, the African society was built on communal Love. The system ran on 'we-feeling'. And the 'we' wasn't about the human beings that lived in the communities; it was also about the animals that lived close by, and it was also about the natural plants that sustain the lives of the people.

The 'we-feeling' allowed people in society to seek the interest of each other. There was communal living. Anybody could put a child right on the street. Women in polygynous homes would cook and give to their rivals' children.

And people extend love and care to the environment. There were laws to protect water bodies. Women in their menses were forbidden from entering the streams and rivers. Plant species were protected and revered.

There were forest reserves; no one was allowed to cut trees from them indiscriminately; and even if people needed any part of a plant specie, they took from the reserves with care and reverence.

And so love in the past radiated from humans to animals to plants and even to the spirit world.

But today, everything is the opposite. There is no 'we feeling'; people are selfish in love. There is no care about our environment. We throw rubbish anywhere; we win sand everywhere; we cut down trees anyhow. We do not have any care for our immediate environment that sustains us.

Our love is only for our physical body; not spiritual. We make a caricature of ourselves thinking we have adorned ourselves. We would take pictures of ourselves in some spot in the filth that has engulfed us; we would put it on social media for likes.

We would talk about boyfriends and girlfriends; we would talk about heartbreaks; we would talk about our perverted sexual lives; we would talk about momo for sex.

There is nothing human feeling about our ways these days. It is a life of debauchery.

Yet, far away at some places, the youth are engaged in progressive causes. They are talking about the earth, the sea, saving turtles and global warming.

They are full of life, and they radiate life. They want to live and live for tomorrow. They spare their thoughts on the environment that would sustain them into the future. Young children are passionate about the environment; they are planting trees.

And here, there is no future. We only live for today. Each one for himself; God for us.

No love; only sex; wild sex.

We are just incapable of loving. We don't know what it is.

Paul Zowonu

Accra.

#talkingblues

25/11/19:12:12