Why do we fight?

While I try to while away time sometimes I take a run down the memory lane to good old times... times long ago to label myself as innocent, which I presume I still am J J!! During the middle school, as is the case with everyone we have some people who are close to us and we tend to be pretty possessive over them. "He/ She is my friend!! My friend alone! You go pick someone else"...  "No you are NOT part of our gang, you can't play with us"...

Do you recollect such time when we had our own small gangs, if anyone wanted to be friends with those in YOUR gang, the rest would/ you would staunchly oppose? All this usually didn't carry an impact strong enough to ruin anyone... as you would label it now in simple terms as "being kiddish". Any difference between guys would be sorted through a tough measure of dialogue involving "Dude, you tell me, you are my friend or his?"....It was all peaceful, issues sorted through dialogue, rarely did fists fly. Try remembering such instances and a smile would definitely flash across your face on such memories. You were until then unspoilt by the evils/ paradigms of the society.

Now take a step forward... a few years ahead... You still have groups/ gangs of... Let’s say people (friends may be too generic). But, only this time around those groups are defined NOT by the simple facet of who is close to you, rather it’s the parameter that defines WHO, THAT person is. Yes, these groups are defined by the affiliations of race, colour, religion, caste, creed, region etc. Time has been swept off and you have grown having strong identity or affiliation to these attributes. You have unknowingly built strong bonds with these. You recognize yourselves with these and inherently built a strong loyalty/ passion. And, when these attributes are challenged your reactions are way different that when you were a kid. You will have physical violence and aggression answering the challenge, not dialogue instead.

This is what is the difference, as we grow we are supposed to be more mature, take a wider & sensible view of the situation. But, in actual as we grow our vision is narrowed as well as blurred by the bias towards the above mentioned virtues. When our bond with virtues becomes stronger beyond a point, we defend it more vociferously and in that moment when the emotions spill over, violence takes command.

This is where we are in the current world scenario. People identify and relate themselves with WHAT they believe defines them and that is NOT good.

Instead we should try painting all ourselves with the same brush of mankind (can't find the relevant quote by a famous person)... recognize the other individual as a human replete of all the tags of religion, region, race etc., believe that we just co-exist in this world with rather virtually bordered/ separated places... maybe this will allow us to desist from spewing venom a.k.a violence, brandishing a shield against all this rather than presenting it as the sword.