Throughout the mysteries and dynamic encumbrances of life, humanity has triumphed over a self-sustaining planet. We have managed to enslave planet Earth to do our bidding. The list of duties goes on and on as we pressure it to provide us with water, dirt, oil, fruits, vegetables, animals, land, trees and many more seemingly inexhaustible supplies. The Earth being a mother above all other things treats humans with respect, dignity and provides without judgment or question. The sons and daughters of Earth in their own respect, and much like impolite child simply takes and takes, giving very little back. One should perhaps think, when enough is enough?
If we were to simply take a moment and look back at this collective history, there are congruent themes that consistently appear within human life. We’ll take the very base thematic of those who have power, those who want power and those attaining power. There has always been an innate struggle to strive for this. Throughout our history without naming specific examples, there always seems to be one group of humans that believe themselves so righteous and proper that they have to destructively transform others into the ‘right’ way of doing things.
Nationalism comes to mind. Isn’t a state defined by its popular ideology? The unification of outward single thought process, while keeping originality and abstract thinking within the confines of the skull. It is outwardly encouraged to be original while that very same suggestion is suffocated from within. This majority rules thematic has been the very cause of much of the world’s discontent. Our jails, asylums, rehabilitation centers, educational facilities, churches, hospitals and so on are ways to keep things in line by placing those citizens that fall outside of popular ideology in for a reboot. It is in a sense, a mechanized process that is void of any organic human respect. A few who hold power, wield to transform others with it. This endless quest for power has led humanity to develop selective deaf and blindness toward key issues. We seek power in whatever form we can attain it and will step on whatever stands in our way. This idea has led humans to stray from the natural environment towards an automated, self-standing existence.
Our world now reflects time management to get the most productivity out of our days. It reflects detached workers that rather confide in machines than their fellow neighbor. A society where the ultimate goal is to increase the number of zeros on the piece of paper one gets bi-weekly to congratulate them for their labors. Where happiness can only be attained at the end of the work cycle through the boredom of retirement.
The mechanical world, in which we live in now, is represented by the ice-cold machines that have replaced the jobs of humans, under the banner of making things easier to manage and produce.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
The question here is simply the following. What has pushed humanity from a rooted Agrarian society to a travel to the moon and beyond society? In a more natural perspective, human life, much like trees, were at one point rooted to the earth. Humans used the materials around them and that was that. If they did not have oranges in their general area, they did not import them from half around the world. Through exploration, humans traveled outside of their villages to search, hunt and investigate. Through this measure human society expanded and integrated themselves with Earth’s other inhabitants. There was tranquility within the satisfaction of simply ‘being.’ Shortly after, science makes an entrance and begins its contamination within human thought. All of sudden, the process behind all things is important to us. Humans begin to look at the logical explanation to a world better felt within our hearts rather than with out brains. And slowly, as the world is broken down, categorized and placed within the boundaries and limitations of definition, things begin to complicate themselves. Before, when a human that figured out to grow crops would plant them, they would place their faith either in the Earth itself, or perhaps in God. Back then, we didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t care about the genetic structure of a seed. We simply trusted that this thing, once placed into the ground would produce what we expected. The whole process was magical and glorious. Through science, we now know why this process happens. We can logically base our assumptions within an estimation backed by supposed facts. It is a mechanized process void of faith, surprise and belief.
Some will call on science as an evolution. For the sake of this argument, let us call upon Darwin’s theory of evolution. Humans, some not all, will identify this theory as truth in some cases. Placing the word evolution aside, the transition from monkey to man is simply a change. There was nothing wrong with the monkey prior to this change. It is simply something different, a new form of life so to speak. Science in the same respect is not an evolution either, it is merely a different view of the world. The introduction of science does not mean that the perspective of looking at the through a natural lens should be abandoned.
So why has it?
We go back to nationalism and it’s general push to get citizens on their page.
We have a choice in the matter, though it might seem that doing so would mean going against the grain.
Knowing too much is a crutch in many respects. Let’s take the example of the film, ‘The Gods must be Crazy’ in which a bushman living outside of the restraints of the modern world is introduced to an empty glass bottle of coke. Never having seen this object before causes him and his village major problems. Technology here is seen as a great evil with no place in the bushman’s natural world. The film will go and show us a contrast between the complexity of the modern world versus the simplistic nature of societies were ages ago. At first glance, it’s nearly impossible to view this comparison free of our inherit judgments. But, for as unnatural as the world of the bushman seems to the person sitting in traffic in his/her brand new car, the bushman would look at the pre-described scenario as unnatural aswell. It is all a matter of perspective. The things we do, are the things we do. We do them because within our environment, it is natural, nothing more and nothing less. It is for the individual to decide what he/she does with their lives. But within that same respect, we must keep in mind that the world, whether it is the fading natural one or the mechanical one, there are natural rules at play here.
The rules are quite identical across the board.
The world simply asks us for common respect. If we are to give this common respect to the Earth, humans, animals, food and even machines, things would go a lot smoother.
For a moment, lets forget about economics. Let’s forget about it because does it really make sense to steal the natural resources of our planet to turn around and sell them? If the money humans gain from the selling oil for example, is used to by a car, what good is that car when there is no more land to drive it on?
Numbers are mechanical and are very much a representation of how the world has become automated so to speak. Dates, currency, years, hours are all a form of logical measurement. Humans live their lives on the clock, punching in and punching out.
So, is it a mechanical world or natural one?
From what I’ve learned thus far, a marriage of both at this point is the only way for true change to take place. Returning to our roots with machine guns is not really the answer without applying the natural rules of things.
Treat others like you would be treated and the world will turn a lot smoother. Then and only then can we truly find this so called human evolution.
Then, and only then.
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