Theory of relativity

Einstein could not really have known the far reaching relevance his theory would assume. But a bit of pondering at his celebrated philosophy reveals a close resemblance to almost all things – may they be routine, rare, mundane or momentous. Dealing with the laws of physics and the dynamics of motion, Einstein’s theory of relativity (improvised later by Galileo) is about how various observers will define one uniform motion. It all depends on the position of the observer.
One need not be a good science student to understand the relevance this may bear on many a life’s aspect. Wealth/poverty; contentment/discontentment; morality/immorality; truth/honesty; youth/old age in fact even seasons have become relative terms – it just depends from where you look at it, and once you do, it is interesting how everything begins to appear in a relative light.
Take winter for example. Last week I left -25 degree centigrade and landed in +20 temperatures. And when in the night it dipped to something around 18 degrees, someone commented, it’s become chilly again. In Toronto it would definitely be called warm! Again, age depends on where you’re at; 40 can be old for an 18-year-old (my daughter for example who keeps calling me ‘a hundred years old’) but still very young for someone over 70. So in truth, it’s the laws of physics which dictate our notions, judgments and subsequently our actions.
It was a trivial incident which jogged the ‘relative theory’ into my memory. While I waited with my friend to do her business at a high-end jewelry shop, a fellow customer was contemplating whether to go ahead with what the jeweler was suggesting. The debate: to buy or not to buy the 4.5 million rupee diamond set. She said that the price seemed ‘a bit’ steep; he said, it looked great and she should not cut corners. What a stark contrast between affordability of one as opposed to poverty of another. Rupees4.5 million is not a small amount by general standards to spend even on jewelry. And if you’d ask your domestic help, they’d tell you that at least two small houses can be made in 45 hundred thousand rupees. I wondered if my old maid still lived in the makeshift shack of bamboo and leaves, with her six children and nincompoop husband, or had she managed to build four walls with a solid roof over her head which wouldn’t flow away every monsoon – her only ambition in life. With her last salary of Rupees 5000, I doubted it.
When the current economic recession began spreading its vicious tentacles, reactions of fear and panic were immediate. But the repercussions felt by individuals translated into different realities. For some it meant job losses for others it meant profit losses. Sadly it were the profit losses of some which resulted in job losses for millions. But such is the circle of life or rather, the web of the money market which while played by a small percentage of the world population controls the economic destiny of the rest of the people of the universe. And unfortunately, each group is so enmeshed in its own web of financial intricacies that they will never be able to see the relative side of the problem. A salary cut might mean staying afloat for businesses while it just might mean reducing an entire meal a day for a worker’s family of six.
The current recession is primarily the result of money shuffled on virtual equity. Home loans, low interest mortgage rates and overwhelming incentives to low income (or even no income) individuals to acquire a property, triggered off the collapse of the US economy which eventually engulfed the world finances. In the US alone, nearly 1.3 million housing properties were subject to foreclosure activity during 2007. Reported figures say that the US mortgage debt has more than doubled to $10 trillion in 2008 from $5 trillion in 2000. Following the home owners’ ruination, the next big hit landed flush on credit card spenders who are now left with ‘maxed out’ cards and nothing to pay the bills with. Credit card expenditures – incidentally identified in the Islamic banking system as usury – has left lower and middle income groups with staggering amounts in bills with no money to pay it off. The figures are too insane for the layman to make sense with. Ironic though, that while many people risk losing their mortgaged houses propelled by the greed spread by investment banking, others suffer and struggle with inflated prices for their basic needs of nutrition and health. Critical financial mass has resulted in losses on both ends but the fundamentals of survival – relevant.
And as more markets collapse around the world the dichotomy of the economic cave-in enhances how ‘relative’ the concept of money and prosperity is. In Dubai – that most man-made of cities – when real estate and share prices fell, luxury car owners had no liquid cash to pay of their million dollar Mercs and BMWs. And so the story goes that about 30,000 cars were found abandoned at the airports when their owners cut their losses and made a smooth getaway to whichever country they came from to find their pot of gold. Here in Pakistan, I hear the lament of the daily wage worker, who till some months ago was just concerned about making enough for the day to bring home some decent food, but who now also has to worry about enough bus fare to first reach his work place and then about making enough to meet the rising prices of food.
This is not just about disparity. It simply reeks of a greedy world where our cravings for ‘more’ has made us discontent and gluttonous – some more so than others. Is it at all possible to establish a finance system which distributes wealth a little more equitably?
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