Darkness falls for the second time. Once due to the setting of the sun. Then due to the absence of electricity. A faster and sudden fall of darkness. For a few seconds, everything blacks out. Pupils dilate, looking for guidance in the inky blackness. From somewhere comes the chirk of a striking match. The subtle golden glow of a candle fills the expanse in a snap of a finger casting a sense of relief.
Only then do we hear the silence. The precious silence. The noise of the television packed with over-enthusiastic commercials, monotonous news readers, the whirr of the refrigerator we are so used to, and all the other electronic sounds competing with each other are gone. With that, we get the chance to fall into a moment of silent contemplation. To be.
For me, this is a perfect time to enjoy a moment of peace. That moment of peace is worth the minor inconveniences caused by the absence of power. Because our electricity-driven lives do more harm than heat and mosquitoes could ever do.
Electricity gave us so much and at the same time, it took so much from us. Electricity indeed turned the night into day and we are always grateful. But it took me a power failure to realize certain things. In the olden days, people worked while the sun shone and called it a day as the sun went down. Electricity took that from us. At what time do we call it a day now? Most of the time when we try to call it a day, the next day has already broken. Life has become a race. Most of us barely have time to take our eyes off a laptop screen, to take our ear off a mobile phone. Worst of all, for most of us, the normal world and people have been replaced by a screen full of squares where a set of faces passively stare at a webcam. What have we gained? Are we happy? Do we have time for a real-life conversation? Do we have time for ourselves? To reflect on what happened during the day? No. We all are rats in one big race. The finish line never appears, and no one cares. And, we have nothing to do but start running as soon as this moment of peace ends.
It is good to lose electricity once in a while. Then in the dark, we start to see things that we cannot see under fluorescent lights.