Table of Contents
A. The Senselessness
1. When one goes to ₹750 a plate buffet restaurant, one invariably eats more than he/she would on an average day. The plates would have more food waste on an average per plate than the food over 50% of families in India can afford in a day in a plate.
2. On average, in an urban Indian household, more vegetables are stored in the Refrigerator than cooked in a day.
3. In an online grocery delivery app, one orders more items, than one would otherwise purchase if one went to shop.
4. In India, almost 98% of cars on the roads have more seats than the total number of members of the family. (Where are the families anyways, we now have people living together for cost-cutting).
5. And we have “buildings” (not homes) with more rooms than members, and some have more floors than members and more cars than members.
B. The Roman Death Syndrome
I call this the “Roman Death Syndrome”.
More Romans died out of eating more, than out of hunger. More Romans died in trying to keep the land they did not need than in battles of defending their land.
This is a syndrome of loss of consciousness where one fails to measure what actually they need, and they spend their lives accumulating more in the fear of a bad time in the future. Because one lives life preparing for a bad future, one invariably ends up having a bad future.
Galen
Claudius Galenus, commonly known as Galen, was a Roman physician(129AD) who first recognized the metabolic syndrome and planned a lifestyle intervention for the Romans. His lifestyle intervention method is more or less the same as that is used for chronic disease management.
What Galen failed to see is the play of the luring and self-annihilating brain. Rome produced more Neros than Julius Ceasors.
C. Signs of Roman Death Syndrome
More selling than buying, more desires than satisfaction, more feelings than emotions, more worries than joys, more and more cranky children, more “done and relived” than the best, more plans than action, more fantasies than reality, more hatred than love, more sadness of what I don’t have over, the sheer joy of still breathing.
Everyone wants to “be seen” as the best over the rest, but there is still a Bill, with more money than the rest.
D. Outcome
RDS enters into a family, first as a means of feelings of dissatisfaction. Then it becomes a narrative, then a discussion, then an aspiration, and then the only family human “alive” because the rest become rats, for corporate experimentation of RDS in a Universe 27.
E. Read the Signs of Roman Death Syndrome on Your Doorsteps
The eyes of Socrates were blinded by Athens because they did not want to hear the obvious. Galen was kicked out of Rome for his “Roman Syndrome” narrative, only to bring back during subsequent Roman epidemics by Marcus Aurelius. Even Seneca, the sane, couldn’t impart sanity in Aurelius’s son Commodus(Yes the Roman emperor who Invented Gym and became a Gladiator himself).
Rome died, much before it died. Families die, much before the first death appears.
When there is a fire, one of the ways to feel good is close the door and convince yourself all is well. Human societies have always built a narrative to live by, that validates their lives, their deeds.
When you get up early in the morning, think about life, think about your identity. If you do not have a strong desire to live today, because today is the best day of your life, and you are either thinking about how good the past was, or how the future could be better, then you are well infected. Get the antidote to this virus.
Life is beautiful even on the footpath, and death is devastating even in the syndrome. The universe gives you all the signs. Read them and take pause. RDS will eventually turn you into a Roman grave, eventually, today or tomorrow. READ THE SIGNS.
The transition of RDS from Roman to the Modern Times
This started predominantly after the first Roman Slave Revolution in 134 BCE. Those who were into physical works(such as mining, and agriculture) felt that the Greek slaves have it too easy, as they were more or less put into administrative, teaching, and hospital jobs.
This led to the innovation of schools, and Romans opened the public service for citizens as well as slaves. So, those in the administrative jobs envied the physical slaves who were able to breathe in the open air, however hard their life was, and those on the ground envied the Greek administrative slaves.
Over a period of time, the wealth accumulated through lots of the other cities made some Romans so rich that they became busy accumulating more wealth to become rich.
Most of the children of these corrupt Roman officials became incompetent. Slaves from around the globe, their contrasting lifestyle, and the contrasting lifestyle of the Roman officials with generals, with that of their parliamentarians, with that of their public servants, with that of their miners, agricultural laborers, and so on made everyone believe that they deserved more.
I deserve more=RDS.
F. Reader’s Comments
“People seek validation because they are not in the acquisition of the truth, the esoteric truth. If they fully knew what ought to be done & what ought not to be done, no advertisement of sensual temptation would overpower their ability to keep their senses subdued.
Nikul Joshi
And so when considering purchasing an Apple phone, he needs the validation of his neighbor. The neighbour in turn is waiting for validation himself from others including his neighbour. And then after seeing some maverick having bought the product to exhibit enormous heroism of having tried it first, both neighbors buy the phone and further symbolize the validation sought by many others. The chain strengthens, the debt builds, but the company laughs. Thus the blind lead the blind, the sensual lead the sensual, and the indulgent lead the indulgent.
Mimicking is the sole flair of today’s culture, casting to the winds all prudence, right discrimination, and careful discernment.
Any act leading to excess recoils heavily on the actor itself in the mysterious ways of Providence.”
Post industrialization where production has gone into the hands of machines, markets are producing at an unprecedented scale. Once the inventory is full, they are constantly looking for new markets and consumers to sell. Banks are coming with new instruments like credit cards, and loans in 5 mins by way of which you can accumulate more than your present financial status.
Amit Singh
Thanks for sharing this Rupam Das. The minimalist approach is the need of the hour but antithetical to the strongest force called ‘Capitalism’.
Let’s hope to drive a balance, a middle path.
F. Conclusion
History repeats, over and over again. Anything that happened in the past is happening now and will keep on happening in the future too. We carry almost 80% genetic similarity to the mouse and the elephants. We are 95% similar genetically to one of the most violent apes, the Chimpanzees. Therefore, irrespective of civilization and technological growth, there will always be this animal that will remain in us. History tells you everything that you need to know about present life and future trends. You need to start paying greater attention to the past to start making sense of the present and to predict the future with certainty.
Overconsumption led to the fall of the mighty Roman empire. It will lead to the fall of any empire, through epidemics, civil wars, conflicts, floods, and draughts. Marcus Aurelius understood the signs of death knocking on the doorsteps of Rome. Have you?
It takes 10 years for a man to learn the art of being satisfied, content, and celebrate life, accept death, take a pause, break the narrative, alter the feelings, and then another decade to put this to the family gene to make the family alive again.
Death always comes announcing like the Romans. If you are senseless and unconscious to recognize the Roman Death, you will suffer, and yet you will not learn, because the sheer desire for more would want to see more deaths.
