Non-Consumable Stickers

Have we not all, at least once, watched the construction of a building being assembled? We were all children fascinated by building and constructing. I too had a sketchbook that reflected this curiosity and enthusiasm. I believe many of us have gone through such sketchbooks. While tidying up my library shelves, which were in complete disarray, I came across my old notebook—the one with all its stickers still intact on their pages.

I know I am not alone in this fascination with stickers. We found them beautiful, glittering, and delightful; we could never bring ourselves to use them, fearing we might never find them again. Perhaps our sense of frugality was evident even at that young age. My notebook is filled with page after page, yet not a single sticker on any of them was placed by my own hands—only the glittering stickers applied by my friends remain.

Today, the children who once could not bear to use up their stickers have grown up. In growing up, they have lost many things—not just the clothes that no longer fit, the shoes that are gone, the picture books that no longer speak to them, or the days of running and playing in the streets; they have also lost certain values. They now waste people—colleagues they work shoulder to shoulder with, friends they have chatted with for years, their favorite player on the team, the actor they follow in a few TV series, or even someone they have never met but who exists. They discard stickers as mere two-dimensional objects, things they can only believe in when they touch them; yet they waste human beings—people who may have lived in the same neighborhood or sat beside them on the bus—in mere seconds.

We consume people as if they were dry nuts placed on our table, with no boundary, no red line. We no longer pause to look at anyone’s furrowed brow, their broken heart, or a single tear. The first moment we disagree with someone, we throw them to the ground and mercilessly “lynch” them. After all, everything must be exactly as we say it should be. In this age where we shout about freedom, we have no tolerance for anything beyond our own opinions.

We are champions of freedom right down to the core of our being. We have no time to heal our relationships or offer people a chance to improve. Life demands speed—we must keep up. We have no time left to pause, to breathe, to repair or restore anything. Everything in our lives must be the best, the most beautiful—even if we ourselves are not. We can make mistakes, but no mistake may be made against us. The wrongs we commit against others may not burn our souls or silence our conscience; yet even a single error committed against us—even if accidental—must be met with a scream from the rooftops. We must fiercely defend our “rights.”

We use and waste people as if we were venting the pain of all the unused stickers. I do not know where our childish frugality has vanished in our mature minds, but I suspect it has been lost among the clutter on the lowest shelves of an unused mental library. Now, our sketchbooks are still full of stickers, but the book of our lives grows lonelier with each passing day.