Bill Gates, in his speech on TED Talk in the year 2015 pointed out a grave danger, “If anything kills over ten million people in the next few decades, it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war." He said, "We have invested a lot of money into nuclear deterrents, we have invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic.”
A prediction made by the American Author and psychic Sylvia Browne in her 2008 book called End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World, goes something like this: “In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.”
Again in the 2011 movie, “Contagion,” we see a bat dropping a piece of a fruit which is eaten by a pig. That pig is then slaughtered for consumption and the virus is passed on to humans. The movie, then, revolves around a theme which may just have turned into a reality for most of us.
Now, how do all these predictions become a reality in less than a decade?
How do we fail to notice the obvious? How do we specifically obliterate the eerie sounds lurking in the background?
What does the common man miss? Or to put it more specifically, what is it that we are allowed to miss?
Somewhere all along the last decade, most of us have been trying not to miss our annual flu shots. We have been through SARS and H1N1. And yet, each time we tend to forget that an epidemic is not yet over, but just halted. No one tells us that, at least popular media definitely doesn't. We are kept busy with our regular dose of Celebrity News, Grammys, and Royal lifestyles. We are made to clap over things that definitely do not have a real influence in our lives. We are taught to salute our military strength and to hate our neighbours. We are spoon-fed on the wrong kind of information while the real stuff, stuff that is actually going to affect our lives, is gently shoved under the carpet and it is done with so much expertise that we hardly notice.
Do you think that anyone will care once the pandemic is over? Do you think that anyone of us will ponder over the impact it once had on our lives? Maybe it had an impact on the people a few decades ago, but our times, I call them the times of consumerism, where everything is driven by a consumer’s interest, we as consumers aren't interested in the real thing, we just want to outlive a problem without thinking about ways to get over it if it recurs. We have been coaxed into closing our eyes to the truth, the truth that no one wants to tell if we, as the general public do not want to listen.
A simple answer to the logical explanation of these predictions would be that a few of us still have the power to listen to the voice of the universe. They are still in touch with nature and the natural process that events undergo. We just need to get out and breathe in some fresh air, we need to clear minds and hearts, the ones that we were created with, in the first place, hearts untarnished by hate and jealousy, hearts full of empathy.
Maybe nature is always by our side trying to send us the signs, but we have turned a deaf ear to all that should actually matter. Maybe its time we opened the window and hear the birds sing. This pandemic is a great time for spiritual healing so why not begin it today?
Sylvia Browne ends the paragraph with a somewhat optimistic message,
“Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it has arrived, attack again 10 years later, and then disappear completely.”
Let us hope that we do get back in tune with Mother nature in the coming decade and in case a prediction does come true, we will be more than prepared for an outbreak, which hopefully, won't be as damaging as it has been this time.