A great song. A curtained room in a sunny afternoon, you lying on the bed, the speakers blaring the song... Terrific... But then that is not what I intend to discuss...
Has been long since I wrote something. And I could not even find time to comment on your views on my last topic. It was interesting reading the entire list of comments one after the other. Seemed like we really were discussing something there... :)
There was something about Fb's last comment that reminded me of a discussion I once had with ... someone ... in the past that so very continuously betrays us and slips out of our mind. The topic of the discussion was a relatively simpler one. And I believe I have had a shorter version of the same discussion with Aggie.
The discussion started off with trifle school curriculum discussions and went on to the question that does "scientific development" really lead us anywhere? An absurd thought. But the more I think about it, the more I am sure that we are still where we started. Perhaps we never moved. Perhaps we are not even supposed to.
You could argue (as did my partner in discussion at the time) that in the past 'n' number of years the human life expectancy has gone up by an average of 20 years or so. We now live a longer life. True. But I say we live an unfortunate life. One that is continuously plagued my the fear of infection, disease, a social insecurity and a lot many more unwanted burdens. Result: we hardly "live" that long life. (I for sure am not very certain where the last few years of my life went!!)
Then you could say we are looking deeper into the atom every passing decade. Well, I say it would not have hurt us so if we had let an atom remain as indivisible as its name suggested. But then we owe electricity, computers and who could forget, mobile phones to this technology. Don't we?
Do we? I find the constant beeping and ringing of mobile phones a pain that has to borne with. I find more solace in playing football in a field than driving cars that I could never own on my desktop.
It is individual perception perhaps, but somewhere I do feel that we all could have lived as much a life roaming around naked, hunting for our food, not worrying about the deadly diseases and politics of the world, dying at an age of 40 ignorant about electrons shooting around in metal. But then I do not see myself doing it. Unfortunate as it seems, this life is as good as that.
And what has brought us to all this? The so very hailed human "thirst" for knowledge. Thirst.. Greed... it goes back to playing with the words. So what do we do about it, dear mortals?
Maybe the following will appeal to the saner humour that you possess somewhere in the back of your heads...
Calvin: "I'm a simple man, Hobbes."
Hobbes: "You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!"
Calvin: "I'm a simple man with complex tastes."
Adolf Hitler, in his autobiography (an excellent but twisted piece of thought provoking literature) states something that I have always thought to be true:
Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was ever meant to become lord and master of Nature. A lopsided education has helped to encourage that illusion. Man must realise that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. (...) Man must also submit to the eternal principles of this supreme wisdom. He may try to understand them but he can never free himself from their sway.
(...)
Here as in elsewhere, one may defy Nature for a certain period of time; but sooner or later she will take her inexorable revenge. And when man realises the truth it is often too late.
Has been long since I wrote something. And I could not even find time to comment on your views on my last topic. It was interesting reading the entire list of comments one after the other. Seemed like we really were discussing something there... :)
There was something about Fb's last comment that reminded me of a discussion I once had with ... someone ... in the past that so very continuously betrays us and slips out of our mind. The topic of the discussion was a relatively simpler one. And I believe I have had a shorter version of the same discussion with Aggie.
The discussion started off with trifle school curriculum discussions and went on to the question that does "scientific development" really lead us anywhere? An absurd thought. But the more I think about it, the more I am sure that we are still where we started. Perhaps we never moved. Perhaps we are not even supposed to.
You could argue (as did my partner in discussion at the time) that in the past 'n' number of years the human life expectancy has gone up by an average of 20 years or so. We now live a longer life. True. But I say we live an unfortunate life. One that is continuously plagued my the fear of infection, disease, a social insecurity and a lot many more unwanted burdens. Result: we hardly "live" that long life. (I for sure am not very certain where the last few years of my life went!!)
Then you could say we are looking deeper into the atom every passing decade. Well, I say it would not have hurt us so if we had let an atom remain as indivisible as its name suggested. But then we owe electricity, computers and who could forget, mobile phones to this technology. Don't we?
Do we? I find the constant beeping and ringing of mobile phones a pain that has to borne with. I find more solace in playing football in a field than driving cars that I could never own on my desktop.
It is individual perception perhaps, but somewhere I do feel that we all could have lived as much a life roaming around naked, hunting for our food, not worrying about the deadly diseases and politics of the world, dying at an age of 40 ignorant about electrons shooting around in metal. But then I do not see myself doing it. Unfortunate as it seems, this life is as good as that.
And what has brought us to all this? The so very hailed human "thirst" for knowledge. Thirst.. Greed... it goes back to playing with the words. So what do we do about it, dear mortals?
Maybe the following will appeal to the saner humour that you possess somewhere in the back of your heads...
Calvin: "I'm a simple man, Hobbes."
Hobbes: "You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!"
Calvin: "I'm a simple man with complex tastes."
Adolf Hitler, in his autobiography (an excellent but twisted piece of thought provoking literature) states something that I have always thought to be true:
Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was ever meant to become lord and master of Nature. A lopsided education has helped to encourage that illusion. Man must realise that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. (...) Man must also submit to the eternal principles of this supreme wisdom. He may try to understand them but he can never free himself from their sway.
(...)
Here as in elsewhere, one may defy Nature for a certain period of time; but sooner or later she will take her inexorable revenge. And when man realises the truth it is often too late.
