Truth, honesty, philanthropy and virtue reigned supreme in the primitive days. Nowadays, their shrinking space displays a grim and gloomy picture of this society. And the race of bargaining continues. We are a nation of escapism, extremism, and materialism. We are a nation that compromises systematic irregularities. We are a nation of gluttony. We don’t care about the abuses of the laws. We let things manipulate us and still have a complaint about being inferior. Fib, misconception, egotism, backbiting, excessive plausibility of prosperity and possessions, hypocrisy, opportunism and incompetence are now entering our nature and culture. We are going through a severe identity crisis, frustration is spurting, anxiety is swelling and ultimately resulting in dwindling productivity, chaos in relationships, and unrest in family life. Indeed, we prefer sycophancy and ambidextrous over righteousness and sedulity. Our folly is turning the only life chaotic by living in superstitions over reality. We left no stone unturned to get specious applause for being sage even though we don’t worth it. Our chameleonic acts are deteriorating morals and etiquette. Since a chameleon changes its colour when in danger while we change our colour when others are in danger. We gain privilege from others’ pain. We show specious sympathy for others’ failure and die the very next day when a person get succeeds. Nepotism, dogmatism, intolerance, cronyism, regression, false pretence, and deception have become a new norm in our nature and culture. A chameleon changes its colour when in danger while we change our colour when others are in danger. It is painful to see our ethics and ethos being unacquainted gradually. We are in a race to spot flaws in others deeming ourselves Mr. perfect. Making perils in others’ way is, unfortunately, a trend in today’s society. Manipulation, declaration and exploitation are the newly self-generated standards we keep nowadays. Myopic lenses we keep are judging and creating exploitable woes for others, for us it is a joke and an act of amicable. Thinking differently, having a disagreement and being dissident to a particular point of view push us into a milieu of demoralization. Well, the finishing pandemic is rebating to unveil the newly formed mask culture, still, we wear masks to hide our vile intentions. We radiate hypocrisy, we nauseous toxic words, we speak only to feel others inferior and etcetera. The trading of principles is yet another canker we bear in daily life. What we preach, like philanthropy, and humanistic tendencies is for others while we don’t believe in it. Unbelievable! Even we charity for plausibility, genuine altruism is wandering elsewhere. Humanity is no longer with us while being in ventilation for long as its funeral procession has recently been carried out in Pattoki leaving this society with shame. This suffocating society seems in no rest, tranquillity or serenity. This society is beyond dreaming while escapist in endeavouring. Plus, not reluctant to judge and declare. No denying, that we suffer from a severe identity crisis and even we fear to try. This society practices no action sans privilege that may be in any form whether body concern or behaviour. We wish to move mountains from our cosy couch. We expect epic outcomes with little effort. For most of us, our failures are divinely planned but triumphs are our miracles. We are inflicted by the malady of intellectual dishonesty. Fears and egoistic tendencies drive our actions. Fear of failure. Fear of ridiculous. Fear of social stigma. Fear of trying. Fear of landing in a new milieu that might shatter our long-established beliefs. We love stagnation. We suffer from a serious identity crisis. We hate what we are and love what we aren’t. Inferiority complex is deeply embedded in our subconscious. We desperately try to add to our self-worth by taking a selfie with notoriously prominent personalities and posting them on social media. Negative energy and deviant tendencies are swiftly creeping into our part of the world with costs incalculable and repercussions unbearable. As a society, we are heading toward the brink of retrogression and stagnation. We have been forgetting the past of our future: the exalted ideas and doctrines that guided our actions and behaviours for centuries. The lofty ideals of the past: truthfulness, integrity, steadfastness, honesty, kindness, tenderness, and benignity are being transformed into and replaced with regressive traits of dishonesty, duplicity, and hypocrisy among the others. Of all negativities blooming in our minds, intellectual dishonesty costs society dear. Most of our intelligentsia and educated class are obsessed with malediction. By all means and measures, most of us do not bother to rightly guide those looking around. We are less apt to extend genuine guidance due to our irrational fears that guiding others might abate our relative worth and value. We help others make their odyssey of life bad, even worse. In the race of materialism, the real spirit is missing. Though we ought to mourn the demise of our conscience and consciousness, we left no space for a silver lining. All the aspects on which a society stands are in decay and would lead to no less than a massive degenerative deterioration. The writer is a freelance journalist based in Kandhkot, Sindh.