reducing knowledge to feeling and feeling to action

Knowledge,feeling and doing

How do we reconcile the deeply angular inverted pyramid of a vast knowledge base, but only little of it evoking feeling and still lesser coercing us to act, do some thing about realising the potential of those feelings.

It is true that none of us can really  act on all the feelings we have about all the issues on which we accumulate knowledge about. Sanity demands constricting the scope of concerns on which we can focus, invest emotions in and be responsible for. But then how much denudation should take place on the forest of knowledge before we get alarmed and feel compelled to take action determines the boundary of our persona.

Action could also be no action. We decide not to act on a large number of feelings and we also decide not to feel about a lot of issues which lie within the domain of our valid concerns.

The filter we use to define the relevance of Knowledge or awareness of that knowledge ( conscious inventory of concerns) determines how our feelings evolve. The topography of feelings then get influenced by our filter of what I can or not do without doing something about them.
Social inertia, individual silence and indifference,  and dilemma with in a person's inner corridor of conscience  determine the extent to which I feel responsible to take action.

ENTIRE mobilisational  potential of social and personal action depends upon the way these two filers of knowledge to feeling and feeling to action work.

dealing with disaster: when shall we start learning from them

dealing with disaster: when shall we start learning from them: if after so mamy deaths, we dont learn and change the policies for dealing with natural disasters, when will we ever do?

Devastating floods in uttrakhand once again draw our attention to the gross negligence we commit towards preparing better to deal with such tragedies. The state administration must be complimented for evacuating more than fifty thousand people already to safer places. They need all the support. But we must also learn from such disasters to prevent or minimise the loss of life and property and of course the environment. What are the immediate lessons: a) when rains started, forewarning to pilgrims at lower elevation not to proceed further was not issued. This led a lot of yatris travellers to move ahead and getting stuck. The local communities helped the stranded people a lot but they have not been trained to do this better. c) the habitations on the river banks without any protection from the fury of floods were completely avoidable. Norms for river bank strengthening must be developed and construction too close to the banks must not be allowed. D) A lot of people are stranded, a lot more have lost all that they had, and many more are buried under debris. Learning from 2001 earthquake, inventory of concrete cutting tools, technologies and lessons are still not pooled at one place. Given the hope of life underneath, one has to avoid gas cutters. Iit Roorkee can help as also cbri and other IITs. A mission must be mounted to deal with such eventualities better in future. E) Lessons from disaster management are seldom pooled and made available in local language for wider reference. This is a long pending issue. F) Climate change, fluctuations and impacts will become more severe in days to Come. How many institutions, communities, public and private bodies have disaster management drills regularly? To what extent the resilience of the society at large increased in the last decade ? Where is the national action plant to do so? G) We need to mobiles all support for affected people and let us contribute generously to such a cause. We will share the contacts of local relief teams soon so that those interested can contact them directly. Pl pray that no affected victim of this fury of nature remains without relief or rehabilitation