Eternally New

We seek newness. Joy envelopes us seeing new things. New car. New home. New clothes. New phone. Newer and newer captures our mind. An addictive drug, newness. Just like a child discovering new things, adults too feel elated with newness. A child’s elation can be justified because they are eager to understand their existential surroundings. Can an adult’s elation be equally justifiable? 

Our life is a journey. We are travelers in this world. Feeling thrilled with newness for adults is a lengthy stop at one destination, Newness. What greets us as new will be an old product in a new wrapper. Few cosmetic and internal changes to a product are turning our own object stereotyped, and resultant ennui yields a comical outlook toward life and living. We live without thoughts, or we utter lamentable and laughable refrains such as ‘same old day.’ Our understanding of life as humans, gradually, degrades. A degradation that spreads to the far greater environment as well. For humans are meant to live from the perch of superior understanding of life, and the greater benefit we ought to derive as a superior species. 

How did we lose our edge? The purpose for our lives is defined by external sources. From birth we are conditioned to think of a career. Career is the ultimate destination for life. Every activity we engage in is driven to lead us toward a career. As children we are asked what we want to be when we are grown. At social gatherings, the topic of discussion with children is our career path. In schools, police officers, and others come to talk about their careers. Successful people narrate their career path. Life is career driven. We exist to take on a career, and live marrying, reproducing, and embarking our kids onto the same journey. The purpose of being born as a human being is to have a career. 

Narrations of reaching the peaks of career are recounted with great fanfare. Every successful, according to modern definition, person who journeyed from humble beginnings to the peaks is devoured. Each year best career options, best colleges, best companies to work, and many other bests are published to encourage the public to participate and dedicate our existence to career. A career worth living for is the quest for humanity. We discharge our duty with our employer and turn the TV on to be entertained. When career and entertainment are ‘fun,’ our existence is assumed to be enjoyable. Our world should be a ‘fun filled’ world and free from encumbrances is how we want to see life as a superior species. 

With great difficulty, enduring many births, we reached the pinnacle of life forms. Upon reaching the pinnacle, our life vista is a mere career, acquiring properties, phones, cars, planes, boats, and possessing a nest egg for our sunset years. People enjoyed vacations in the past decades, today it has evolved to Staycation. Words are coined with ease and introduced in the public domain to take root in the minds of people to ease the decreasing value human life is assuming in an era of industrialization, computerization, digitalization, and data driven human world. Humanity is inebriated to discover that the value of our existence is draining because culture, religion, and traditions that were critical to human existence are deliberately vacated and replaced with a false narrative that humanity is a new creature that entered the sphere of life. A drunken monkey will do less damage to the environment than what an ignorant new creature called a human has accomplished in just a century. 

Humans existed for millennia without inflicting damage to the surroundings we depend on for our existence. The rapid decline in human civility toward our environment is directly correlated with abandonment of responsibility. Each of us shoulders a responsibility in life for the self, family, community, and environment. We are defined by our responsibilities. Our culture, traditions, and religions define our responsibilities behaviorally, and actionably. We are not an irresponsible manifestation of nature. We can live because molecular to galactic systems function responsibly, and it manifests, spectacularly, for us to witness day and night. When order is seen, it must be concluded, logically, that it is not accidental. We are not an accidental evolutionary product. We are the most refined outcome of intelligence that reverberates in the Universe. Intelligence radiates when we journey forward in life to discover existential truths. Our intellect rots when we park our life at ‘Newness.’ It would serve humanity to discover that intelligence is a dual edge sword. It possesses an ability to lift our lives, and to self-destruct when improperly deployed. 

Intelligence is eternally new. Our responsibilities are eternally new. Our soul is eternally new. Our nature is eternally new. These are ageless. Our food is eternally new. We would not halt our journey in life at all things that appear new to us today. We will explore to discover that what seems new had to have existed before. It must have come from ancient things. The shape and form might be different in ancestral times, but it had to have existed is irrefutable. Human beings have a responsibility to discover the truth of our culture. Our fascination with newness will fade, and our intelligent journey will lead us to ever newer, and joyous experiences and destinations in our life. We can all see that in the joyous expressions of a child discovering newer and newer things. Child incessantly learns his environment with total fascination. Once a child commences school, fascination ends. Ennui commences. The higher the ladder of education, the less fascinated we become. 

We exercise responsibilities at our place of employment, but everywhere else we shrink our responsibility in life. Responsibility must be a rewarding experience. This thought is trained from the days of school. Unrewarding chores is not a responsibility. We are not aware of the consequences of shirking from responsibility. We are not realizing the consequences of relying upon industry for every need in our lives. It changes perception of the truths governing our lives. We became the procurer, and the producer shoulders the burden for damages. Procurer enjoys rights, which enables claims on legal grounds. Producer, equally, enjoys rights as well to avoid economically prohibitive expenses. Responsibility completely muted by both the procurer, and producer. Evading responsibility might be cost effective, but the long-term consequences are experienced, globally, in natural calamities. 

Our modern systems of existence might provide a method to avoid responsibility, however nature commands a hefty fee for avoiding responsibility. Everything in our visible world functions responsibly. Animal species and trees are fulfilling their roles admirably for eons. Oceans are fulfilling their duties spectacularly. Our orbital systems have not missed a beat. Everywhere order can be seen. Into this orderly system of existence enters the human race with a penchant to control all of humanity by making us less and less responsible by distracting our intelligence, and responsibilities. The climate agreements, promises to reduce carbon footprint, and various other initiatives of the modern era are an exercise in futility. Because our existential dependence on energy requirements is increasing, our needs are endless, our stationary and irresponsible existence will take a toll on nations in future costs that are not budgeted or accounted for.Ignorance is not bliss. It is valueless. The wealthy in the world have become wealthy on the backs of an ignorant population. This is not the first incident in human history. We need to rediscover the joy of intelligence and responsibility. We should not pause our lives at the fun park and shoulder our share, too, as an intelligent species to unlock greater value in life than mere survival. When humanity displays responsibility, societal costs will be less, environmental costs will be zero, and joy is infinite. The question facing the youth is whether they are prepared for nature to take charge of the situation, or will we emerge from the stupor of modernity on our own will? Nature is communicating with us, who is prepared to listen will determine Post-Modern times!