We Need a Lifestyle that Fits our life Better

We Need a Lifestyle that Fits our life Better

It seems, humankind was not endowed with the ideal mental faculties for understanding the world. Else, since mankind was in existence for millions of years, they would have been appreciating things uniquely. And would have started to master human specific activities, say read and write, much earlier. In fact we would have been having a seamless flow of life, where, all that we explore, learn, and imbibe, would be in sync with everything else, just as it is with all other forms of life.  

Also, for everything we notice, we are in fact coming up with quite a few conclusions and explanations, which, even if are confusing and damaging, look grave enough for at least a few. Hence, someone is there to espouse each inference, however useless, vague or inconvenient, it turns out to be. Human race, perhaps is not one designed for appreciating the world, as well as reacting appropriately in the natural turn itself, to all events and circumstances?

Let us revisit the origins of knowledge, a much celebrated one that separates us from the rest. It seems, when people started to wonder, ‘why things are as they are’, or, ‘why things behaved as they did', and when someone mostly answered as to, 'how', they all chose to be happy and jumped to the next question. Thus, the earliest of exponents, the path or conclusions of whom all would have been of great use or influence to subsequent generations, left the 'why's unanswered. And knowledge is nothing but the accumulated version of those answers.

As a result, knowledge dwells a lot on ‘how’, and as a result of it, we tend be full of answers to questions that may not arise at all. (‘What’ could be a question of every inquisitive mind, ‘how’, only of those who would like to learn to do.) But those answers effectively leave out most of what we wonder as wonder itself. And, at any time, each of us feel encouraged to align with the facet of the wonder that grabs our interest the most. 

That leaves a wide gap between the actual reality and our perception of it. That is why, all the natural philosophers, whether of Ancient Greece, India, or elsewhere, chose to dedicate much of their time in looking for the essence of reality. Their answer was always abstract, since it enabled them to keep those gaps filled without the need of anything real and substantive. Some of them found the answer in 'stability', and some others specifying it as nothing but a state of 'constant change'.

Times changed. All those who followed the ancients, kept themselves busy in trying to redefine those abstract concepts. Every definition opening up some more such ideas, fresh insight into the essence of reality is constantly on the make. A new unfilled gap is thus generated, whenever an existing one gets filled by whatever was signified by the current level of abstraction.

I feel we need to revisit knowledge. In fact the existing notions of our society are not at all a good fit, as far as arriving at an optimum living style for ourselves. For example, there is room for re-defining theology and materialism, while replacing all the abstractions with something real. Perhaps, that will trigger the true lifestyle, we should have been having all the while.