Thunderstorms and Throbbing Thoughts

‘//We didn’t start the fire! 

//It was always burning

//since the world’s been turning!

//No we didn’t light it

//But we tried to fight it!’

-Billy Joel (We didn’t start the fire), 2004

There have been a lot of thunderstorms lately, and it's something I did not miss while I was away from home. I think it has to do with the geography of the place, what with the hills surrounding us wherever we go. I had never noticed them before, they always managed to tuck themselves away just right, dark green giants holding hands with the hovering clouds. But they’re always there, no matter what, silently judging us even though some obscure company always seemed to be chipping them away for god knows what. 

Anyway, I think the thunderstorms are the strongest when there are hills around. The reason I don’t like thunderstorms is because, well, the chance of it. You never know where they strike, or when they pass over. You only know you’re in the clear when you see the flash of light in the distance, and there is a certain kind of relief when you hear that impending celestial drum roll over your head. 

I also like to think its nature’s purging, and I might not be the first to say that. But it makes a lot of sense, I guess. The anger and indignation just boils up and one fine humid day she just lets it rip, striking the earth for causing her so much agony, trying and failing to hit the point. Okay, I MAY have exaggerated it too much, but it is how I see it. 

To be honest, I can relate. The world is not really great at the moment, but it never has been. We tease each other with the gamble of a World War, but never follow through on the promise. It’s come to the point where having it out would seem to be the better way, instead of bottling it up and having the inhumanity leak out every once in a while. 

The reason I cannot bring myself to talk/write about specific things is because there are so many other issues prevailing that need talking about just as much; the Uyghurs being gassed in China, ICE torturing immigrants, Indian men raping women regardless of age, J.K. Rowling coming out as transphobic AND getting backed by others (thanks for nothing) and the ‘greatest country in the world’ being ruled by an Orange. The less talked about the pandemic the better. These were all that I could get on the tip of my tongue, but if I mulled over for a few more seconds, I’d probably be able to remember countless other atrocities that have almost become as common as the weather report. One could say these indignations are the weather report for the humanity of this century; a crackling superstorm striking an exploding volcano. 

(Another reason why I don’t write about worldly matters is because they are all big downers)

There are a lot of things that make me anxious other than thunderstorms. Intrusive thoughts, like the building collapsing under my feet or the flight I’m in plummeting to the ground, or the insane possibility of getting a brain aneurysm. My mother would just say it’s because I have nothing to do so my head conjures up these images. Maybe she’s right. 

Maybe in the end it doesn’t matter if the world is burning.

“All of us are free when we’re born. People who reject others’ right to freedom, no matter how strong they are, don’t matter. The burning waters, the lands of ice, anyone who’s seen those things would be the freest person in the world. 

FIGHT.

…It doesn’t matter how terrifying the world is. It doesn’t matter how cruel the world is. 

FIGHT. 

Because if you don’t fight, you don’t live.”

-Hajime Isayama, (Attack on Titan), 2009

I don’t claim to know the difference between good and bad, because they aren’t concrete terms. But it doesn’t take a philosopher to know that we’re in a landmine of Bad things with a capital B. And I’m also not one to say that things will get better if we keep faith in humanity, because it won’t. What is humanity, if not for all of us; you, me, the stranger you think you know living next door, the people ruling us all. We throw the word around as if humanity is some invisible group of crime fighters ridding the world of evil. Stop lying to yourself with delusions of a better world coming, because if you don’t do something, it will never come.

It doesn’t mean that we all band together and guillotine the billionaires, (although that could scare capitalism into submission). It means you need a thunderstorm inside yourself, and strike down the things that cause agony in your life, the toxicity, the anxiety, the injustices that you see around you. 

And it won’t be easy. There will always be the other side marching against you, and they will be larger and stronger than you in so many other ways, and yes, they will win, occasionally. But it doesn’t mean you stay down. You don’t have to change the world. But you must fight to change your world. 

And the hills of warriors past will be standing in the background, holding hands with the hovering clouds of history they’ve rewritten.

• V. Sreeja