Scarcity

In these times of complete uncertainty, there is one thing that we are facing with complete clarity and that’s scarcity. Today, let’s try and figure out some other aspects of this word that has rocked the world these days.

To my mind the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity.

– Thomas A. Edison

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? What’s that? No one noticed I was gone? Yeah well, that’s what I thought. Anyway, I’m back to my annoying ways. And here I have yet another musing that comes at a time when most people, and by most I mean all, need something to do. So here goes. The world is suffering through a pandemic currently, the newly found COVID-19. This microorganism has caused almost the entire population of the world to become domestic (because human beings cannot always be considered completely domestic now, can they? I digress). The entire human civilization has been rendered, rather, ordered to stay inside of their homes. The consequences; the global economy has taken a downturn, routines disrupted and people like me have got a lot of time to get back to things that we would have liked to do a lot more frequently. However, there is this very strange phenomenon that came to light a few days before this “lock down” was announced. People predicted this announcement and started stocking up on essential articles for daily living.

Despite governments constantly announcing that essential services would not be hampered, general public has taken it upon themselves to stock up months’ worth of supplies. This pandemic also has started to assign very high value to articles that wouldn’t necessarily be valued at that high a price. For example; hand sanitizers, tissue paper and face masks. There are numerous videos online that show people actually fighting, like literally punching each other in the face, for tissue paper.

Why is it that we start to value things when we have a fear of scarcity of them? Come to think of it, hand sanitizers and tissue paper are things that are required for daily hygiene. But now, that they are high in demand, and hence at the verge of becoming scarce, suddenly they sell for two and three times of their prices. This is a phenomenon that we have witnessed for various other aspects in our daily lives. Endangered animal species is something that come to mind. The Sumatran elephants, orangutans, tigers; they did not gain the share of attention of people till the fact that they are endangered came out. Poachers had been at work for numerous years for these animals to reach the status of being endangered; but the prominence and safety that these animals deserved way earlier; they got when there was a scarcity of these animals on earth.

The save water campaigns, the save girl child campaigns and every other campaign that starts with the word “save” are reactive measures. We react to the current circumstances, but when it’s too late. This however, isn’t something that stays limited to illustrations that can be measured. This is something that we can see in our daily lives as well. There are times when we look for people, qualities and happiness long after we have lost them. That is when we start to assign value to these things, because we are too ignorant at the time to notice that we are losing them. This makes us reminiscent of the times when we were confident, when we were happy. Currently, I’m sure everyone of us is reminiscent of times that we could go out; be it to the gym, to meet a friend, to watch a movie and what not.

The point that I’m trying to make out of all of this is that while being in the present moment is great, I think it’s just as important for us to understand that there are qualities that we assign high value to and we would rather not lose them. And because of this reason, we should keep in mind that it is better to value them just as highly in the present, when we have them, as we would when we’ve lost them. Now, for us who have lost hope, confidence or whatever that we have lost; is this it? The answer is no. We are action oriented beings. We like to satisfy our ids, our egos and super egos. Once we understand that what we have lost has value, we should make every imaginable attempt to regain it. And after we achieve it, it’s of high importance that we don’t get complacent and hold on to our valuables with both hands, with the intention of never letting go.

I hope that this global scare ends as soon as possible with minimum damage to the morale and lives of the human race. And once we are allowed to leave our houses and go out in to the real world, we will be more appreciative of the things and “facets” of life that we don’t currently have in our grasp.