A mentality
Permanently ingrained, a lack of impartiality
A mentality of one tribe, one leader
Conquerors of all
Watching one denomination rise
As the others fall.

We see this
In our daily lives;
Competition is our focus.
The locus
Of our society
Is the proliferation of one
At the behest of many –
The most popular,
The most fashionable,
The most sought after,
The best of the best.

This ideology
Is a narrow, winding road
Fraught with many perils –
For example, in our education,
There is this infatuation
With the pressure cooker environment.
This toxic affinity
Of the extension into infinity
Of one’s mental ossification
Of the mind’s degradation
As it is appraised
By a system that is based
On the standardised quantification
Of the truthfully divine abilities
Of the human mind.

A system designed to create drones.
It’s basically a free-for-all;
A few get to be called the best
Whilst the rest
Fall through the cracks.
Those who struggle
Are risking getting marginalised
Or at least, probably penalised –
The letter ‘F’ blankly stares back at you,
Its power to grade one’s mental capacity
Wielded like Aaron’s Rod
Borne by those who receive it like the Mark of Cain.

The us vs them attitude
Arises from this system
A point of interest on the same latitude.
We built a world
That conditions in us
Not a spirit of co-operation
But one of aspiring to *******
The prioritisation
Of one person or group deemed fit to rule over all;
Be it a sport, or a work of art
A theory, a criticism,
Or a measurement of the schism
Between one political party and another
It does not matter –
If there is an issue, people will be divided.
Those of us who think outside these parameters
Those who dare look for intelligent, fruitful discussion
Are destined to a life of being given the side-eye
A social concussion.

Why must we compete?
Why is our life replete
Not with community spirit and a betterment of humanity
But with iron-****** regulation
And an inability to concede?
Why must we divide our resources
Not fairly and justly for all
But like a fire that scorches
Consuming all it finds
With no thought for the morrow?

Imagine
7 billion human beings
Not only co-existing
But actively seeking
To be smarter,
To consume less, to work harder
Not on commercialisation or profit
But on travelling farther
In the realm of human creativity,
On sustainable ingenuity
And the wiser administration
Of a planet we inherited.
Always, incessantly
We adhere to our tribe’s superstitions;
Our decisions
Are not exclusively ours
But a result of countless hours
Of indoctrination, of believing in entities
Not morals or principles – in our identities,
We conceive of ourselves as vessels that are imbued with what we consume,
Not with what we are actually made of.

How about
Instead of being sealed off from each other
We realise that it shouldn’t be us vs them
But us vs us –
A moment of introspection
A brutally honest intervention
To give ourselves time to realise
That mindfulness is an exercise
All of us should engage in.

It is easy to exist
Within the frameworks that are provided to us;
The ‘us vs them’ mentality
Is like sandpaper to one’s individuality.
We trim and edit our personality
To fit our group’s motifs.
It is much more difficult
To realise that nobody is going to fight for us
Except for ourselves
And that this fight
Needs to start from within.
All we need to do
Is learn how to say ‘No,
I will not be a part of this –
I will not be a serf to the kings and queens
Who blind your eyes, and steal your dreams.’