#30: On Zooming Out.

our individualistic disposition is ruining our world.

Fatima Mohammed.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how desensitised I’m becoming to the stories I hear and the news headlines I read. We don’t have to search to find bad news. It finds us where we are and the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness grow each day within me like a thriving tree bearing copious amounts of rotten fruit.

The father of a cousin of a former colleague has been kidnapped. There’s been another bandit attack in a remote village in Benue. South Sudan is going through one of the world’s worst hunger crises. Lives are being snuffed out in Gaza like they’re simply candles; like they never mattered. 

I scroll past stories, numbers, and reports, unable to see that they’re more than that. Unable to see that behind the estimations, the rounded-off figures, the statistics, are real human beings. Human beings that feel the emotions I feel. Human beings whose hearts palpitate from anxiety just like mine. Who fight unending battles in their mind with doubt just like me. Who feel joy moving through their veins and can be deeply immersed in happiness and feel the full range of it, even just for a second, just like me. Human beings who look up and see the same sky and moon as I do. Human beings who face unimaginable terror I can’t ever conjure up in my mind.

In the capitalistic and highly individualistic world we live in, it’s the plan of those who hold the power to make us see these things and shake our heads, tsk, shrug our shoulders, sigh, maybe offer a prayer, and then move on. To make us believe that as long as it’s far away from us, as long as it doesn’t directly affect us, as long as we can see it through a screen, or hear it from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone, it’s fine.

It’s so easy to be focused on ourselves and carried away by our problems that we forget we’re all going through problems. It’s so easy to be consumed by wading in the waters of our obstacles that we don’t see the person next to us drowning. It’s so easy to be worried about your lack of cooking gas that you cannot notice the fire consuming your neighbour’s house.

We’ve become so centred on ourselves and our survival. We’re so up close, we need to zoom out. It’s about more than us. We really are in this together. Yes, we all have very different experiences, backgrounds, and struggles. But regardless of our diversities and complexities, the one thing every single one of us has in common is the human condition. We’re all experiencing life on earth as humans, struggling, growing, and feeling the same range of emotions in different ways.

I hate that we have to imagine ourselves in other people’s situations first or imagine a challenge others are facing waiting for us around the corner, to see that it’s all our problem. That problem you feel is far removed from you will reach you one way or the other. The injustice and the climate change will reach you. In the same way, when you’re compassionate and care about the plights of others, when you take action, it’ll create a just world that will benefit you, too. 

Our world revolves around profit. Profit is more valuable than human life. It’s the reason pharmaceutical companies sell medicines at exorbitant prices. They prioritise profit maximisation over people’s lives and health. It’s the reason social media companies continue to prioritise keeping users glued to their phone, to maximise profit, over these users’ well-being and safety.

We need community and to understand that we’re all in this together. We need to know that all oppression is connected and if the person next to you isn’t free, neither are you. We’re all human beings, but so much of our suffering is caused by us, not some great unknown force of evil. It’s caused by political decisions and faulty systems that tear us down and keep us down. 

It’s all so overwhelming and I don’t have all the answers. Most times, I don’t even know where to start. But I’m realising it’s better to do something—even one thing — than nothing at all. I’m realising that choosing silence, apathy, or neutrality is picking a side. And it’s not the side of humanity.

Now, I’m trying to put faces and stories behind the numbers I see. I’m trying to educate myself about what’s going on. There’s more than enough available media to do this: books, documentaries, films, podcasts. And when that seems like a lot, or not enough, I’m remembering that thinking of others and not just myself, being kind and compassionate, and letting my desire for a just society inform my decisions is revolutionary and that’s a start.

The genocide, the wars, the poverty, the racism, the misogyny, the homophobia and transphobia, the climate change, the unhealthy working culture, all of it are our problems. Never think because you’re far removed, it won’t reach you one day. We’re all connected and we need to zoom out and start somewhere. We need to keep going, keep reminding ourselves and redirecting our thoughts to community. They want us to give up, but we can’t. They’re terrified of what we can achieve when we come together and centre community.

I’ll leave you with a poem: Not My Business by Niyi Osundare

“They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe –
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.

The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.”

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Fatima is a creative writer, essayist, and intersectional feminist. She’s an advocate for having hobbies and she loves reading, crocheting, practicing yoga, and plants. She has a newsletter on Substack called Nostalgia Trip, and she’s the founder of The Oracle Africa Literary Group, an online community for readers and writers of African literature. You can find her short stories, essays, and other creative projects here

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