Back to our roots

Humanity has progressed a lot. We drive around in cars, order food online, connect with other countries on our phone, video call our relatives in high definition. Life has become way easier than ever. But somewhere in this festival of gadgets and beeps, we have lost our human touch. We are happier wishing people online and continuing our friendships on Facebook. When was the last time you wrote an actual physical letter? Our vocabulary is heading down south and being restricted to 140 characters.

Kids don’t play out in the sun anymore. They are exposed to dark and violent video games all day and night. Young men don’t really try hard to talk to a girl they like. Why would they when you can easily score a one night stand through TINDER? The romance is lost.

Books rot and crumble to pieces on their shelves. They are replaced by e-books and audio books. No one would want to relax on their couch on a lazy Sunday and read their favorite novel. They already have it in e-format on their iPhone. Once upon a time, having a lot of time on your side was good to explore varied interests. Now, it is bad to be idle even for a hour. One shouldn’t be wasting time on activities ! Rather he could utilize that to earn a little more money. What an irony! Corporations develop different iterations of the same product over and over again. Not many of the products or services are of any real use to society. But customers still buy them in queues since the color is a little different from the previous one they were using.

And soon there will come a technology that would bring us back from the dead? Oh wait, there is cryogenics that delays our death. And DNA restructuring that would elongate our life span. And of course, artificial intelligence that can replicate emotions. Whoa! That last one sounds real dangerous!

Thought abstraction is leading us into null. We no more seem to care about what’s going on around us. We are anyway going to live around only for 80years right? It is our stupid belief that we care for our kids and they in turn are going to care for theirs and so on, so we are somehow caring for the future in general. But it doesn’t work that way. Long term vision for mankind and our planet is very essential and our actions and thoughts should be based on such a vision.

While it might seem like there is no hope, certain things that still exist around us from time immemorial that lighten up my spirits. The commanding mountains, the crystal clear streams and gushing rivers, a cool breeze on a hot summer day, a view of the ocean meeting the horizon, a new born baby starting back at you with its big blue eyes, a melody that takes you back in time, lyrics that remind of your loved ones, delicious food that makes you content, a wonderful conversation over coffee on a rainy day, a father teaching a son to ride a bike, listening to you mom recite a bedtime story, friends staying back at your place and sharing old times, oversleeping on a cold winter morning, cuddling up with your other half, meeting an old friend after a long time over beer, celebrating your birthday every year, traveling and understanding new cultures, the blue sky inviting you to fly, walking through a meadow of multicolored flowers and finally the NEVER ENDING dimensions of space and time.

Humans are inherently loving, curious, ingenious and evolving. It’s just that we have been temporarily empowered (read overpowered) by technology. The time is around the corner when we actually get back to our roots. Not immediately but probably in the near future.