I used to wonder how this world became such an interlocked place of extreme dependency. Today, I thought about it again, when I looked at this picture.
If we just have to live alone in a jungle, we would almost not need to depend on anyone. But in an attempt to protect ourselves, we might try to cling. In the process, we might enjoy the feeling of being together. However, when we start thinking about what remains after we're gone, we probably would think of leaving something after us. That is when we would try to bring in more things and people around, including our own children. From here on it doesn't take long to transform our thoughts into creating what we call a society.
But we never realize the intensity of what we just created until we get overwhelmed by it. We slowly start to depend on the various elements that constitute a society. One fine day when we realize "Ah, did we just create a chicken-and-egg problem?", we start questioning ourselves. We try our first line of defense. Without realizing that it was we who created the system, we start listing down its absurdities.
First, we require people to give us things that we wouldn't have otherwise needed in a simpler system. Absurd! Second, we cannot always give back to people whom we take it from. More absurd! Third, from a cooperative mode that we thought our society would behave, we get into an ambitious mode where cooperation is a nice-to-have. Even more absurd! You can continue to grow this list of absurdities and it can get quite complicated.
Surely, the society is a good and a bad creation of mankind that comprises of many dimensions that are built upon some of the weirdest chicken-and-egg problems, of which dependency is just one dimension. As you keep thinking along these lines, you traverse through thoughts about selfishness and about usefulness. And then you go back many years and try to dig out the purpose of your birth. Now you get stumped.
You don't know how to begin because the start is the universe. You attempt to reverse-engineer and try to find out how it could end. Even that doesn't help because the end is also the universe. Does the sum of all our lives add up to zero or to eternity? Now you're confused whether the system is absurd or you're absurd. That's when you most probably try to give up, because your eyes are already closing, asking for sleep. You need to address more dependency concerns of either yours or of others, the next day.
If we just have to live alone in a jungle, we would almost not need to depend on anyone. But in an attempt to protect ourselves, we might try to cling. In the process, we might enjoy the feeling of being together. However, when we start thinking about what remains after we're gone, we probably would think of leaving something after us. That is when we would try to bring in more things and people around, including our own children. From here on it doesn't take long to transform our thoughts into creating what we call a society.But we never realize the intensity of what we just created until we get overwhelmed by it. We slowly start to depend on the various elements that constitute a society. One fine day when we realize "Ah, did we just create a chicken-and-egg problem?", we start questioning ourselves. We try our first line of defense. Without realizing that it was we who created the system, we start listing down its absurdities.
First, we require people to give us things that we wouldn't have otherwise needed in a simpler system. Absurd! Second, we cannot always give back to people whom we take it from. More absurd! Third, from a cooperative mode that we thought our society would behave, we get into an ambitious mode where cooperation is a nice-to-have. Even more absurd! You can continue to grow this list of absurdities and it can get quite complicated.
Surely, the society is a good and a bad creation of mankind that comprises of many dimensions that are built upon some of the weirdest chicken-and-egg problems, of which dependency is just one dimension. As you keep thinking along these lines, you traverse through thoughts about selfishness and about usefulness. And then you go back many years and try to dig out the purpose of your birth. Now you get stumped.
You don't know how to begin because the start is the universe. You attempt to reverse-engineer and try to find out how it could end. Even that doesn't help because the end is also the universe. Does the sum of all our lives add up to zero or to eternity? Now you're confused whether the system is absurd or you're absurd. That's when you most probably try to give up, because your eyes are already closing, asking for sleep. You need to address more dependency concerns of either yours or of others, the next day.
