Natural follies on the path to advancement

Natural follies on the path to advancement

Man is wired to be curious and inquisitive. There is an inner urge to make things better, easier. To go higher, deeper, farther, faster, better. Unending quest. Inimitable urge. Inherent yearning. That is so beautiful. That is so wonderful. That is one of the things that makes us humans different from the other life forms. It is true today that physically there are limitations that the genes and chromosomes put on us – size, age, physical talents, mental abilities, intelligence levels. Is it not amazing that we want to even challenge those? We are talking about tweaking genes to change how we are.

To discover the hidden. To challenge the limits. To invent new ways. To overcome hurdles. If we had not had that urge, we would have been in primitive state. That is one of the things that amazes me. Has anybody seen any life form changing and discovering their life circumstances in anyway comparable to what we have done in the past few centuries? Any one life form? Anywhere? I want to know.

But what saddens me is the way in which we have achieved our advancements. When we discovered that electricity is a form of energy that can serve us, why did we not think first about converting sun’s energy falling on the earth every half day? Sun has been the best source of energy for the earth. Every time I stand on the seaside, I am amazed at the amount of energy that the waves present every minute on the thousands of miles of beaches around the world. Why didn’t we think of inventing ways of harnessing that into electricity we need. Wind is a form of energy that is passing by without any of our efforts. True, it is unpredictable, but when it is available, it can be converted to the energy form we need. Yes, now after 100+ years of electrical energy use, we are getting serious about using these energy forms.

We have raped nature by burning coal, to heat water and then rotate turbines to generate electrical energy. A hugely inefficient way of generating energy. We have built up dangerous nuclear fission structures to heat water and then turn turbines to generate electricity. We have dug up deep wells on land and in the sea to get petroleum fuel that we burn in automobiles for transportation and to generate electricity.

If only we had the cool heads invent mechanisms to harness sun, wind and waves to generate electricity? Our cars would have been electric cars from beginning. Our homes would have been lit by electricity generated on our own roofs. We would have breathed cleaner air in all our cities. Well, I am not disheartened. We have been given the ability to think and we thought in an evolutionary way to arrive at where we are. Now we are more conscious. A lot of time is not lost. We have had this for about 100+ years. In the whole of human history, that is not a big time. Let us correct our paths and do the right thing as we know it! Looking back, I am just awed how man has progressed through different stages. Sure, I am privileged to live today in the midst of all these happenings! Yes it is a privilege that I savour every day!