The Great Human Faultline

In 25 years of my existence, I have come to understand the world in my own peculiar way. A lot of questions that were answered. A lot of questions yet to be answered and even more yet to be asked. But from what the world has displayed to me in its mortal being is the fragility of our existence. As the world drives towards a more "woke" state of mind, we, as a species have managed to create and erase so many lines for ourselves. Social, economic, political, ethical to name a mere few. Given the course of history and the current trend of being, it remains a matter of time before further divisions arise.

If you take a moment to think about the workings of the free world, we came from a society of hunters and gatherers. Back then, we knew nothing and so our collective mind, although primitive, used the best possible reasoning to lay the rules down for a functional society. The fact was that men and women could procreate, just like any other sexual organism on the planet. This naturally meant that the men would provide and the women would nurture. The men would bring shelter and food and the women kept the family afloat. Feeding the kids, cleaning up the house, cooking the food. These were basic functions that nobody forced upon women, just like how men were expected to bring food on the table. They were expected to protect. They were expected to provide and shelter and take care of anything that needed physical presence, which made sense as men are biologically stronger than women in terms of how they are built. These divisions were fairly simple because the world we lived in was simple too. There were no governments. There were no universities. There were no corporations and there were no schools.

However, with time, our world started to evolve because humans were not limited to being simple sexual creatures who only lived to procreate. We had a very developed cortex in our brain which was capable of advanced and critical thinking. As much as we were programmed to perform basic functions of nature like procreation and nurturing, we were also capable of finding simple solutions to complex problems. Here's an example. For a regular cat from a tropical region to survive in the northern winter, the only way was evolution. Evolution gave it fur, thick enough to adapt to the harsh cold climate up top. But for an advanced species such as us, all we needed to do was kill and skin a furry animal and use it as a coat. We took a problem that nature takes a million years to solve and found a solution that takes a mere few hours. This has been the case with so many other inventions we have made as a species. Humans, although primarily land mammals, have developed solutions to adapt and traverse through all forms of the earth - air, water and land. We have come to build aircrafts and space stations, submarines and ships, houses and roads with cars and trains. With the realm of the industrial revolution and the information age, the ability of the human race to solve problems has increased exponentially. As you read this right now, thousands of scientists and scholars across the world are hard at work to solve the most complex problems of the world like quantum mechanics, cancer, aging, artificial intelligence, origins of the universe and so much more.

If you think about it, we are compelled to solve these problems, with some making it their life's mission even, only because we are the ones that created it in the first place. Everything wrong with the world today is a result of our existence. At its birth, the human species was so young and naive that we followed what nature expects any life form to do. To comply with it. To obey it. To respect it. But with time, we discovered how far we could push our ability from mere hunting, gathering and nurturing. And with time, the basic classifications started breaking down. Two became four and four became eight. Eight to sixteen and so on to the world we live in today.

Once, as nature flourished and created new species, today we lose 0.1% of all existing species in the world every year. There is a strong inversion trend that seems to be peaking out where everything that is meant to flourish is diminishing. The ozone layer degradation, global warming, ecosystem extinctions, human overpopulation are all categories that threaten the risk of extinction of not only the human species but all life on Earth as we know it. And while the good things deplete, our societal divisions increase by the day.

In the 1900s, there existed only 78 independent countries. In the free world today, there are 195. We started off with 2 basic genders, male and female. Today, there are 16. Yes, you read it right. 16. The most commonly observed mental health issues among today's youth stems from a lack of self identity. Divisions are good as it is pro-choice. It empowers people to choose for themselves. It gives them the freedom to be whoever they wish to be and live life however they want to. However, division also creates deep crevices that we could fall into if there is an education gap. If people are failed to be educated on the fundamental rules of the world, the divisions become meaningless and the gaps become more prominent. Think of it as buying a pizza and dividing it into 8 parts at first. Then 16. Then 32. And so forth. At one point, the size of the cut between the slices and the size of the slices itself will become the same. And this is where we stand now as a species.

So, the question begs. How do we find and maintain our identity in the world? How do we find our true purpose? How do we not get lost in divisions and debates? The answer is simple.

Pause.

We have been fighting so hard to solve the problems we created that we have failed as a species to look back on how far we have come. We have come too far. Sometimes the trend needs to be broken. The system needs to be rebuilt. Evolution is designed to sustain life on this planet by letting it adapt to the ways of nature. The more we accelerate evolution by artificial means, the more we put ourselves and our fellow species on this planet at risk of complete annihilation. The world needs some slowing down. The world needs some thought. We need to collectively contemplate our methods. We need to rely on our greatest strength once again. Critical thought and fundamental truths.

Early civilization followed sustainable living. If you take a moment to research any of the prominent Indian or other international (Roman, Egyptian, Mayan) civilizations, a common school of thought that was followed was oneness with nature. Human sustenance was because of nature, not despite. However, today's methods have changed. Although we are currently on high alert with respect to energy transition, it won't be enough for a long and healthy survival of both the human species and the planet itself. One must reduce dependency on electricity as much as possible. It's almost ironic when you realize that the human brain only consumes 12Wh of energy but human beings in their present lifestyle consume well over an average of 30kWh, which is 2500 times more. This is not to hint at technology abandonment and going back to primitive ways of living. This is only to encourage healthy practices that can make every individual more self-sufficient by sustainable means. Terrace farming, cutting down on meat consumption, aiming for zero plastic usage, rainwater harvesting, composting, etc. are some useful solutions to aid everyday living. Avoiding fast fashion is another big way one can contribute to reducing their carbon footprint. The solutions to a healthy and sustainable life are numerous because we have already practiced these ways of living as a species, albeit many, many centuries ago. The trick is to integrate them to our modern world without compromising on true value living, or as today's world likes to call it, making it "trendy".

All this, just to say that the universe has been around for 13.7 billion years. The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. But the first form of complex life started only 800 million years ago. And the record of the first human civilization only dates back to just 5500 years. A mere thousand years is barely a dot on the universe's timeline. We may never exist again and yet, we are here, our skin and our hearts made up of the universe, as fragile as one could be in this massive space of nothingness. So let us pause. Let us breathe. Let us not dominate the very thing that created us. And let us never forget that we are a product of fundamental truths of the universe. Only that can save us all.