As humans we are obsessed with having the newest, the latest, the most up to date, aren’t we?
Some clever person invents something and instantly we’ve got to have it!
Whether you have the money to buy it, borrow the money, or even steal it, you have to have it, don’t you?
Someone invents the television, the newspaper, a blender, electric lightbulb, car, a gas stove, a sofa, a duvet, a washing machine, a nuclear weapon, a gun, a knife…If someone has invented and manufactured it, you’ve got to have it!
Someone invents a plane, and now you want to travel by plane.
Someone invents democracy and now you need to have it.
Someone invents a new recipe and you gotta have it.
Do you follow?
Someone invents the internet and social media and now you can’t live without it.
Someone invents the mobile phone and now you can’t possibly live without it.
Someone invents beer and now a friday night out wouldn’t be the same without it.
Whatever someone invents that brings pleasure to the senses means humans have to have it. They don’t think about why they need it, or if it is going to cause harm to the planet, our fellow species, or the other inhabitants of the world that we disgard as lower species.
So why are we constantly in search of the new, the undiscovered? Maybe it is human programming to seek out new ways to help the species evolve and survive but it seems to me that the only things we seek are those that give us pleasure and make our lives easier. And that can’t be a bad thing, can it?
It seems to me though that we have lost so many skills, and information in our search of the new, that if we no longer had any of this new technology, we wouldn’t know what to do!
We have become so reliant on modern technology that the loss of it would destroy humanity in a very short time.
Why? Because we no longer have resilience. We are weak alone, without the machine that provides our food, our homes, our transport, our education, our money, our roads, our entertainment…our clothes.
We have no idea what it means to be human without the new technology and would quickly die off! This might be good news to those who believe the world is overpopulated, as there are very few people globally who are psychologically, emotionally, and physically reliant on technology (including me, I might add).
Even in literature, people are constantly in search of the latest book, the latest advice, the latest self help, but…
If you were to look back throughout the ages there are authors who have uncovered timeless truths which will help humanity evolve, but we’re not interested in all that old stuff are we?
In music, classical music is for old people, or the stuffy upper classes, not for young people who are thee future!
But what everyone is failing to realise is that it is the people of the past , who have undergone great hardship in their lives, tat have allowed us all to complain about them n twitter anf facebook today
Your ancestors toiled in the fields, suffered starvation, fough endless battles, dealt with death on a daily basis, just so you could explore your sexuality, and become a content creator on tik tok!
Don’t get me wrong, without all this new technology I couldn’t be writing this for you today.
We have used our big brains and become truly creative but there is something fundamentally wrong don’t you think?
Our basic needs are shelter, food and clothing, but how many of us could provide that for ourselves?
10? 500? A million? All of us?
Thanks to our big brains we have created some marvellous inventions, but we are now less able to provide for ourselves than our ancestors were tens of thousands of years ago!
How is that progress?
Thanks to the development of agriculture, and the subsequent specialisation of man, people only have one skill, the one that provides the money, and we buy products and skills we need using that money.
In my personal view, we need to rethink our progress and search deep inside what it truly means to be human if we truly want to evolve.
As millions have found out across the globe, when the food runs out, the electricity is switched off, the water is polluted, the houses are destroyed by our fellow man or nature’s power, we are at best a weak species, and at worst on the extinction list.
