I was scrolling down my Facebook page this afternoon and the picture above popped up on my screen. It was posted by a very dear friend of mine from college days, Billy Wayne Adcock, Jr. He happens to end up physically and mentally at the strangest spots on both the internet and our great planet. His post today is an example of this. This great piece of art was inviting me to share my thoughts and the writer in me could not resist.
There is no doubt that in this age of great scientific revolution we are carrying heavy and humming heads. Our collective lifestyle is mechanical, food is processed, clothing is polyester, the air is highly polluted, homes and offices are narrow and closed, thoughts are propagated, minds are loaded with relevant and irrelevant information, and hearts are coldly materialistic. We lead highly artificial lives. We think pragmatically. Our relationships are fragile and temporary. Our extended families are now reduced to nucleus ones and they are also breaking. We believe in insurance companies but don’t trust or stand by each other. Most of our homes are broken, parents are divorced, siblings are at bay, children are glued to PlayStations and all of us are enslaved by screens. Our appliances are wireless but we are entangled to them. Our socialization is online and we take virtual tours. Day by day, we go away and away from nature.
Our dreamy lyrics are getting replaced by practical hip hop. Audiobooks are eradicating reading. We call illicit things art and like to live in sex free society. We prefer preparations and ignore prayers. We look for temporary affairs in clubs and avoid finding soulmates and marriages. We seek happiness by getting high and through intoxicating substances; we don’t find comfort in the company of loved ones. In the industrial and info tech era, we sing with eclectic composers and dance to electronic tunes. We wear chemical perfumes and enjoy plastic flowers. Our fruits are seedless and we eat hybrid vegetables. Our burgers have no carbs and our desserts have no sugar. It is undeniable that all of our advances take a heavy toll on our minds and bodies. They both are designed to live in tune with nature but we are making them adapt differently.
We must understand that our high speed and high tech rockets will only take us to faraway stars that are merely made of gases, dust, and stones. At the height of our scientific advances do we intend to reach the barren celestial worlds only to satisfy our greed for more and more lands and their ownership? Whereas we already have plenty of lands here on earth for all of us. We only need to distribute its sources among us honestly and justly. I don’t object to space exploration at all. Rather I am a staunch supporter of our celestial voyages. I only advocate a lighter approach and a positive philosophical direction for it all.
We must pause time to reevaluate the direction of our progress and the speed of our scientific discoveries. Are we heading in the right direction? Is our knowledge leading us in accordance with universal laws and realities, or we are on the colliding path? What does the combination of machines and the human body have in store for us? It is true that the arrival of artificial intelligence in our day to day life is making it easier and comfortable. But can IA take over our world from us? Will singularity and artificial intelligence assist us to achieve a greater purpose or lead us to our damnation?
From our bodies to our social fabric, to plants to animals to planets to the galaxy, we are promoting unique, paradoxical, and experimentation probes and challenges. We are creating artificial organs, hybrid seeds, cloning, and photonic spacecraft. Are we looking for exobiological evidence and chasing extraterrestrial beings? Or do we merely want more resources and a better life for our fellow human beings?
Are we going to make our heads lighter or will we add more and more burden on already loaded ones? Do things like literature, poetry, art, music, gardening, and worship have any space in the life of interplanetary human beings?
Credits
Billy Wayne Adcock. Jr
By
Ahsan Jamil
Golfer, Blogger, Entrepreneur, Author, Poet, Wanderer, photographer
Email: Golfaij@gmail.com
Website: Golfaij.com