The
history of the human species, while living on this planet, has taken several
twists and turns. Our curiosity to understand and make a sense of our lives
within and without is astoundingly enormous. We have experimented on so many
fronts, starting with tools for hunting of wild animals, gathering of various forest
produce for food to cultivating trees and plants, managing and using fire,
winning and losing wars, staying in communities, systems of governance,
creating economic policies, developing medicinal drugs, the list is unending.
While we have deciphered quite a lot, yet when we look at the rest of what is
around us, we realise that what we know is only a miniscule portion of the
entire knowledge which the universe holds in its embrace. As a species we continue
to make marginal progress on several fronts even though it may appear that we
have come a very long way since the time we were cave dwellers. In this and the
following chapter, it is my intention to flag certain facts, highlight them in
a way so that we ponder over them, and which would show us that the path which
we have taken is wrought with blunders.
We desperately
need Sustainable Economic Solutions:
Economics is the
field of knowledge which studies and predicts human behaviour in relation to
generation of income, utilisation of resources and creation of wealth. It talks
of humanity as a single unit and not each individual per-se. Therefore while
every individual is permitted to behave in a slightly different manner, a study
of their combined movement would depict a certain specific trend. When such
known trends are mapped to prodding and specific stimulus the resultant
predictions take the form of economic theories. Unfortunately all our combined
human wisdom over the millennium has never considered or evaluated sustainable existence.
When economists discuss sustainable economics, they imagine and take for
granted that materialistic growth can be sustained indefinitely provided
certain criteria are constant available and matched for example the rate of
inflation, perineal availability of resources and perineal desire for wealth. Some
very common understandings are ignored like the exploitation of certain resources
causes imbalance in the environment adversely impacting living conditions, that
the pursuit of wealth is merely greed and does not result in happiness. Our materialistic economic policies
have to change. We need to wade away from current policies that exploit.
Discard them. Why are we juggling with fanciful ideas of growth and GDP, trade
and commerce, financial and military strength, when we continue to have people
struggling below the poverty line, homeless and hungry, tired and depressed,
unhappy and stressed out? Why is it that even the most developed country cannot
get itself rid of its poor? Mind well that I am not referring to the poor
migrants. Why is it that in every country the rich continue to become richer
and the wedge between the poor and the rich continues to widen? We humans have become insensitive to the point of selfishness that
we equate the weak and the helpless to lazy and unimaginative. We humans
consider that poverty is the deserved end result of being non-productive,
ignoring the truth that our policies are bent to favour the cunning
opportunist, the sharp corrupter, and those fortunate to be born into
facilities. We humans are under the impression that there
no limit to growing rich, but where do we find wealth making us happy. We
humans encourage desires and dreams which are specifically focused towards
exploitation of other humans and the natural resources that support us, but we
have never stopped to acknowledge that we are cutting at own feet. We are all
sabotaging our existence, marching towards self-destruction. The entire definition of development needs a shift from
materialistic objectives to sustainable living objectives.
The right wing
view point subscribers across the world are on the rise currently, nationalism
and protectionism of small groups is a fear induced theory which is steeped in
nostalgia of the past. Their time under the sun could be short lived. The future
is going to be held by those subscribers who would look at humanity as a whole
and try to work solutions for the planet instead of continents. They would have
to soon take over.
Our immediate concern is that our economists
should develop economic theories that maps unending human desires against
scarce and limited resources, that maps all human desires to sustainable – non-sustainable
categories and discourages the latter, that maps exceptional individual talent
and capability to a respectable living conditions for all, that maps the
cost-benefit of human activity to its impact on the environment, that stimulate
and encourage enthusiastic sharing instead of forceful taxes, that prize and
reward happiness instead of wealth.
Let us be more
than individuals:
Each one of us
needs to ask ourselves a simple rational question, why do we consider ourselves
independent and individual, why are we not thinking about ourselves collectively
as a species? Why do we assume that individually we can survive and it is not
necessary to imagine a collective existence? If that had been correct, we could
have atleast had a few dinosaurs walking with us today. Each one of us have
become a narcissist and extremely narrow-minded. This has made us irresponsible
in the pursuit of our desires, we have scant respect for the environment that
sustains us, and it has become inconsequential for us that our individual actions
impacts the environment and all other life forms directly and indirectly. Honestly
and yet sadly, our behaviour on this planet has become like that of an alien
coloniser, a foreigner from outer space who expects to go back home after
mining this planet of all its resources.
Even if we don’t
realise it we have to acknowledge that this planet is not our personal property.
Infact the concept of ownership of land has misled us into believing that we
can do anything we want with it. We need to accept that we share this planet
with scores of other species lining on the land, in the sea and in the air. We are
responsible to keep this planet intact and viable for other creatures, like the
insects, animals, birds, fishes, plants, trees and also micro-organisms like
bacteria, to survive. Over the ages we
have never given any major importance to such a thought. We fight with animals
over forest land and easily dispose them off instead of curtailing our needs.
We have cut and destroyed trees to make furniture and paper instead of
restricting our needs. We have breed birds and animals to kill them just to feed
ourselves instead of curbing our appetite. We have polluted the atmosphere by burning
fossil fuel instead of limiting our desires.
We give so much
of prominence to the satisfaction and fulfilment of our individual desires that
we have waged war with our own kind over land, power and gold. Such has been
the strength of our irresponsible attitude that it isn’t too hard to imagine
that in the immediate future we could be once again going to war against
ourselves over shortage of liveable habitats and water just to survive. When it
comes to gratification of our desires, there are no full-stops. Our recklessness
and arrogance has brought about situations where our survival is at stake, and
when it comes to survival we think very individualistically. Today we can
witness our narrowmindedness which has brought forth protectionism and the
refusal to accept migrants, building up tension internationally.
There is a desperate need to consider a U-turn
on our thinking and our policies. Let each one of us aspire to be a better human,
willing to sacrifice our personal cravings for the common good of all creatures
partaking this planet with us.
Understand
nature, understand the nature of energy.
Primarily we
humans need to markdown ourselves, our self-importance and ego. We need to
scale down our pomposity. We consider
ourselves as all powerful on this planet. It could come as a shock to an
average human if he is explained that at the micro level all his physicality
consists of mere waves and nothing solid. Scientists are clear that all particles
on this planet can be broken down into atoms and at the minutest level these
are waves bound together by some energy which give them certain
characteristics. Scientists say that they have been able to understand a
miniscule 5% of what life and its surroundings are. This makes us insignificant
to the scheme of the universe and if truth is to be told then it is that ‘we
hardly matter’. Yet we humans remain happily ignorant and indifferent to this
reality. Spiritual thought leaders have also been saying the same things that
life has no essential meaning but we humans chose to align ourselves towards religion
which gives us an artificial purpose for living.
Everything on
this planet is purely energy. This energy changes from one form to another but cannot
be destroyed and doesn’t disappear. Change in energies is sometimes a normal
process for example the eating and digestion of food inside the body, or the
evaporation of water and its downpour as rain. During changes certain energies
can coexist for example plants using water and sunlight to grow while other end
up destroying each other for example fire burns the forest into ashes. When we
humans in the quest of our satisfying our desires, go about mindlessly and quickly
converting energies without assessing the impact that it has on the planet and over
our life and lives of all creatures sharing this planet with us, we carry a great
risk of bringing about situations which are non-reversible in nature and the
resultant form of energy won’t accept us nor permit us to coexist. The life
energy around and within us would then mutate itself, giving rise to new
species and quite possibly we humans may cease to exist. We therefore need to
balance. Balance our needs and desires, balance the energies and their
compatibilities, and balance our comforts and our well-being, our existence
along with those of other species on this planet. This is the only planet and
the only environment where we can exist and survive, because the design of life
and living organisms on this planet is unique, which is dependent on the
environment available. Even if we humans wish to colonise another planet then we won’t
continue to remain the same and rather the energy within us would mutate to
become compatible with the environment of the other planet.
(To be continued)
(To be continued)
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