Like minds connect

Harmony in whatever form is about coming together. This means that there is something about similarity that draws people and things together. Furthermore, in nature this is starkly evident and follows the instincts that it has vested in living things. ‘Birds of feather flock together’ is a powerful metaphor that alludes to this. 

Animals certainly adhere to this edict and even the vegetable world including forests, seem to sprout this similarity. Perhaps this has environmental and other innate factors associated with this flocking together including the perpetuation of the species. However, there is a curious difference in the case of human beings that we can observe in the consideration of similarities that bring people together. Perhaps there is nature working here too from the biological aspect for there is some relationship of how our skin colors and our cultures pit us together into groups occupying different terrain. But the similarities stop there as far as this hard-wiring of nature is concerned. When we think of who flocks together there is a clear preponderance of us being attracted to like mindedness, rather than the similarity of our physical appearances. 

Even though we may be of different colors, it is the creed or the mind-sets that bring us closer or separate us. It is the inside of us that is the critical vantage here; not our outside, defined by the wealth we own, which only does a show of homogeneity rather than portray the real confluence expected in harmony. We see the clubs and communities showing a convergence based on wealth and status. But in this uncomfortable harmony lies also the seeds of discontentment, competition and jealousy. This flimsy bond is soon broken when the time or the price is right. There is never a sure harmony that the materialist side of our lives brings.

The solution has to be to make minds connect at another level that doesn't consider wealth as a defining line, but moral confluence and spirituality as the common element that allows us to see ourselves in each other. When that happens, there will be permanent peace and harmony for us in this little corner of the world, and also for a whole world if we can so engineer our social systems in this way. 

In Maldives too, not unexpectedly, it is the like-mindedness that flock our "parties" together. However my take is that the genesis of these attractions are unfortunately based on the commonality of their selfish interests rather than those that profess the interest of the community. Podium talk merely panders to the selfish emotions of the polity and not to their moral integrity. And not inconsequentially either, the reality that unfolds on the ground when such proponents have the power of the ship's steering wheel is equally incongruous. It is perhaps high time for us polity to realize that the strength of our economy -- a proxy for selfishness -- surely is not the answer for a safe and harmonious future, but the moral strength of our community is.