The fascination for firecrackers is not because of a lack of awareness about its harms but because of the pleasure it gives
Well, the 2020’s Diwali has been quite a festival. We finally ended up celebrating with masks, sanitizers, and of course, fear. But we have still managed to celebrate it, happily, and with content. Well, our team was super excited with this Diwali, that landed amid a pandemic, which the country and the world is surviving for almost a year. And, the major reason for our excitement was that unlike every year, we were expecting some different scenes this Diwali, as we really thought that the pandemic would have taught something to the mighty people about the importance of a healthy environment and how it is endangered in present. But to our disappointment, people proved us wrong. This year too, there have been fireworks and people did celebrate the Diwali festival pretty much in the way they have been doing all these years. And what we feel sad about is that a section of people who crib about the quality of the environment are the ones who choose to burst them, and here we wonder, why?
Read more: Is the ban on firecrackers an attack on Hinduism?
Bursting crackers is something more than between just liting it up and waiting for it to get shot, it is a choice between the environment, cognition and the feeling
Like smoking, like drinking alcohol, like overeating and the like, people know the harm but they choose the pleasure they get from it above the harms it can bring to their body. Similar is the case with the fireworks. According to scientists, fireworks appear to be attractive and fascinating because of their spark and the light they emit, which is different from the light we are seeing every day. When this light gets coupled with the sounds, it develops a feeling of romanticism, magic, anticipation, suspense, and surprise, all at once. Between the moment of a cracker being lit up and it going off in the sky, the dopamine transmission in our body reinforces the idea of goodness in fireworks and hence adds to the romanticism of it.
According to psychologists, people who are high sensation seekers enjoy the act of risky behaviours and often seek out such experiences. The differences in the dopamine system are such that the dopamine gets activated strongly with the presence of complex stimuli. And with low fireworks throughout the year, in some instances, where they feel like getting the sense of joy and gala, the fascination gets built up.
The other argument that curtails how people have been seeing things happening over the years. There are generally some customs and traditions, people generally see and associate themselves with ever since childhood and these traditions get transmitted to generations as they are without involving much brain to the good and bad in them. So is the tradition of bursting crackers. On every special occasion, one thing that is there in the shopping list of people is skyrockets and crackers. During Diwali festival, on Dhenteres, people/ children kept seeing the tradition of bringing crackers along with the other festival goods. Hence, the cognition gets developed from there and starts to condition the celebration with the presence of crackers.
Well, this year, where a larger section still chooses to burst crackers, there was a section of people who opted not to. We, at One World News, take this moment to appreciate those who stood above their conditioning celebration with crackers and really urge all the people out there to choose to celebrate the upcoming occasions without fireworks, not for you, not for us but for all.
Have a news story, an interesting write-up or simply a suggestion? Write to us at info@oneworldnews.com
