Past Paradox and Future Judgement

As the human civilization has advanced, it has undergone a trial of conscience at every successive step. Simply put, it has been in a court of paradoxes where there were problems, debates, and choices to be made.

The Homo Sapiens—modern humans—appeared around 20,00,000 years ago. Gradually, these creatures chose to migrate and sail across the seas to make their own way. In the Neolithic Age, they opted to settle down at different places and brought new civilizations into existence. They invented a language, began keeping records, practiced division of labour, evolved social hierarchies, started trading, set up an administration, and thus developed an economy.

Thereafter, ‘ideas’ no longer remained constricted locally but got swiftly conveyed worldwide. Conflicting ideas triggered wars and the greed for power led to the rise and fall of empires. Some have predicted that a calamity—can be in the form of climate change, virus outbreak, or nuclear war among many others—can easily demolish this human empire. The climate of the world and its basic physical processes have already degraded owing to our interference. The carbon fuel based lifestyle has become an aspect of our daily life and combating this culture is indeed tricky.

Pessimism has also deepened in our society. It’s quite likely that a disaster can knock us out in the immediate future, sooner than we predict. However, one thing is certain that whenever it will hit, we’ll be better prepared for it.

In Ancient Rome, Seneca postulated, ‘To mankind, mankind is holy.’ Since then, his words have become the slogan of humanists across the world. Human rights are most ardently discussed in the current era than hitherto any other period of human history. The desire for a better world—of a long-lived human civilization—is a subject of various perspectives. It is being widely discussed and, with the innovations in modern technology, solutions are underway. After all, the road to a better future starts from the present.

For example, sustainable development, now most people agree, is the necessity of our future. In fact, it’s a solution that can heal our planet from many of its ailments. I feel that if everyone learns to survive sustainably then all our issues can be solved. But not everyone has the same odds here. Many times, sustainability is endorsed as a moral value backed by religious beliefs and social norms but an eco-friendly lifestyle is not an obligation for anyone. Are we even going to achieve anything by working for a generation which doesn’t even exist as of now?

Despite these second-thoughts, the uncertainty of the unknown intrigues us to adopt sustainable development. How much ever our problems be, there’s always a hope for future.