IN this age of technology and plastic, have we stopped evolving?
I was inspired to write this article because of a simple domestic situation. While I was emptying the hoover, the inner filter was eaten by the dog. The younger generation said I should buy a new hoover. The middle generation said I could order a new filter online, but the oldest member of the family took a green scrubbing pad from the kitchen press and fashioned a new filter for me without saying a word.
Since the beginning of time, and ever since mankind stood on two feet, we have been evolving. Whether aware of it or not, there is a simple process to it all. We live, we evolve, we die.
The pursuit of understanding the world around us carries into the next generation, and the next and the next. It is within us to use our energy in the pursuit of knowledge and discovery. To figure out things we initially have no concept or understanding of.
It is the pursuit of greatness that built the pyramids. It is the need for understanding the universe that drove Einstein, Newton and Da Vinci.
Everything from writing a story to painting a picture is us learning and expressing through art and exploration.
We all march in the same direction as we are designed to evolve and pass what we have learned to the next generation. Everyone and everything is destined to go in the one direction, from birth to death, through time and generations. To live should be to evolve.
But, in this age of technology have we stopped learning?
Fast food and fast information have stopped the need for us to seek our own answers. Opinions are given through mass media and mass popular opinion.
Processed words lead to programmed minds.
We no longer learn how to roof our houses, sow a crop, repair what we have, or in some cases even cook wholesome food, as we instead pick up the phone and have processed rubbish delivered while we watch processed rubbished on the television.
Convenience has made us lazy.
As a species, we have slowed the process of evolving down to a crawl.
What knowledge are we passing on to the next generation when what they think they need to know is available to download or order?
While the natural world pays the price for our lives of convenience, and while data centres overload and the reliability of our technology comes into question, are we not left in moral negative equity?
As once we marched to the sound of the natural world, we now march in tandem to the beat of the media drum. Beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder, but in the eye of the magazine publisher.
Innocence is now feared, facing into the light of the moon looking for inspiration is no longer a pastime, and lying in the long grass seeking tranquility is considered a waste of time.
The generation before us were available only after they had stamped their time-card at the entrance to their work. They were only available to speak to if they were at home to answer the house phone. We are now all available from the second we turn on our teacher and master, the mobile phone.
The bible is no longer a reference, but a punchline. Humanity and kindness can be seen as a weakness. Indifference to others is viewed as a necessity for self-preservation.
Every day has a deadline. Sitting quietly is a form of selfishness.
Our pursuits have brought us to altered perceptions; fast information, given not learned, discoveries told to us, not found, the art on the wall, not drawn or painted by one of our own, but bought - someone else’s vision and dreams on paper we decide are our own, and somehow we find a strange comfort in that.
We over-eat the sugar and salt that kills us and drink plastic-laden water and continue to brainwash our minds voluntarily.
This world of fast information has created a generation that only read the headlines and not the full articles, as they believe knowing the headline is enough.
This fast information draws little or no emotion, no matter how disturbing the content.
This age of technology and plastic has created minds with little peace, incapable of silent contemplation.
Perhaps we have been programmed to no longer evolve.
We are forever upgrading our houses, our furniture, our cars, our tech, our indifference. While downgrading the challenge to think, to learn, and find a peaceful and harmonious existence which will lead us back on our true path, our destiny, our ability to evolve.
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