In these uncertain times we are reminded of the story of Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez’s novel “Love in the Time of Cholera”. A sentimental story about how love can endure, but can also corrupt man.
The story teaches us that not everything one wants is what one needs, and how love or greed in the end becomes an illness, a disease comparable to cholera or more fittingly now corona.
According to history books, it has only been 6,000 years since humanity had started to become civilised. The industrialisation of man has only started in earnest in the 1800s. But since then we have learned to survive and grow, we have learned to farm, cook and trade, and by some God given miracle we have also learned how to invent, create, heal our sick, and yes even fly.
While humanity has accomplished so much in such a short time, we have also managed to change the natural cycle of our planet.
The effects of humanity cannot be understated. Every year, humanity is falling countless forests and destroying kilometers of vast coastal areas, driving many other animal species into extinction, because of our need to build more roads, infrastructure and housing to satisfy man’s growing population.
Indeed, humanity has fallen victim to love. Not the kind of love that endures and nurtures, but sadly the kind of love that is temporary and destructive in order to satisfy our insatiable greed for power and material wealth.
In its original form in Latin the word virus or “verus” if you follow President Duterte’s definition, is expressed as a ‘slimy liquid, poison’, while in the Middle English era it denotes the venom of a snake.
Now, a virus is defined as an infective agent, too small to be seen by the naked eye, able to multiply rapidly, but only within the living cells of a host.
Distinctions between a virus and man
Like a virus, man’s activities have now greatly affected our living environments, with the wanton destruction of countless ecosystems, abuse of earth’s natural resources, and the unchecked polluting of our land, sea and air.
Like a virus, we too are too small to be seen by the naked eye from the sky. Like a virus we also rapidly multiply, with four babies born every second or roughly 250 each minute. Lastly, like a virus, we are limited to live in the confines of a living host, in our case the Planet Earth.
Humanity has accomplished many great things for itself. It has great potential to reach for the stars or corrupt its own home.
Now, at this junction, we have to decide whether or not we choose to be the true stewards of our planet, as God intended us to be, or be its virus and continue to spread fear, sickness, and death in our wake.
Much has been lost, but all is not lost. Humanity still has time to decide.
