I have forged a wonderful friendship with a French here in Sydney. He has become a very dear friend, with whom I can share my thoughts and opinions on diverse topics with blatant honesty, even if we may disagree on several of those issues. He recently had a knee surgery for a torn ligament, and I tried to visit him as much as I could as he laid immobilised at home, recuperating.

When I visited him last Friday, he asked how my week was and to be completely honest, I couldn’t quite answer him as honestly as I would have wanted to. My week wasn’t great, especially that Friday. I read the news about the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, Nayati on his way to school. It was spreading all over Facebook, that I initially dismissed it as SPAM. As more reliable sources started posting up the same news on their FB profile, I decided to read up more and see if there was any news in media on it. And shockingly and depressingly there was. A 12-year-old was indeed kidnapped on his way to school. He looked like a bright young child, with a wonderful future ahead of him, and he was snatched away from his life. To date, no news has been heard on his whereabouts although investigations are ongoing.

How does this concern me and why do I need to talk about it? How can I not? It appals me to even think of what the kidnappers intend to do to this young child? I can only imagine the horror of helplessness the parents are experiencing at the loss of their child. I am sure they would have deployed every means possible to attempt to find their son, but I do not know if any of these means will be of any use. Every year, hundreds of children are reported missing. Parents try to do all they can to find their child back but almost always with little result. Children are going missing! They are being kidnapped! These kidnappings may be related to some kind of children prostitution or slavery. I do not know. What is happening to these children? The rate of heinous rape and murder cases are increasing alarmingly. We are becoming more and more desensitised to these news. With time, they are evoking lesser anguish and grief in us. It is slowly becoming more of a sensational news, that we observe from outside, either judging the involved parties, or feeling a brief sense of ‘sorryness’.

What leads anyone to become so deprived of goodness, that kidnappings, rapes, murders and prostitutions has become a liable business and an acceptable act? Do you not wonder, what leads human beings to become so violent, and inhumane to a fellow human being?

I wondered. I really did.

Richard Dawkins, the popular author of ‘The God Delusion’ said in his debate with Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia that the ‘why’ question is irrelevant and futile. He proposed that only the ‘what’ question is of use.

How more mislead can one be?

Some of the questions that probes the human heart as he reaches maturity and reason are “Why am I here?”, “Why do I exist?”. From these questions, then flowed some ‘what’ questions such as “What am I doing here?”, “What should I be doing?” “What can I do with my life?”. Aren’t these the questions that drive the human journey of seeking identity.

What happens when a human person finds no relevance to the ‘why’ questions? One fails to understand his origin, his humanity, and all the other values that come with it. One fails to understand his very being and thus is strongly predisposed to act in a manner contradictory to his humanity. Is that not what is happening to our human family today? We no longer know who we are. It is almost as if we have forgotten that we are human beings, belonging to a universal human family, under the guidance of the beautiful One God.

What happens when we want to define ourselves or in the concept of Dawkins, nothing, as the truth and origin of our very being? Finiteness. That’s what we become. An unsustainable system of human economics, that falls apart with time.

Humanity is falling apart right before our eyes and it seems almost as if, we’re watching it happen with a swell of ignorance and arrogance.

And some still wonder why I believe in God, and that humanity came from God, and not from nothing.

So, the answer to Hubert’s question is, I am not ok. Very not ok.