Technology is increasingly creating a world for us to live in – a world that has become virtual in nature giving us false hopes of our rosy existence, creating an euphoria of a well-balanced life and more importantly giving us an impression that we are in control of what we do, and how, and when.
One prick, that world will be gone! True? False? I fear such a deflated picture of our existence may lead many of us to depression, angst and finally to lose the very hope that gives meaning to our existence.
If Facebook likes stop coming or someone else in your friends circle gets more likes than you, you stop to wonder; if your Instagram picture gets more likes you get your bragging rights; if your LinkedIn group discussions stop commenting on your discussion threads, you go wandering around searching for a thread that can get the focus back onto your worldly wisdom; if you stop for a moment, however, and reflect on these virtual likes and dislikes, you may find many of these, supposedly life changing events, are just to tell you that you have been heard and seen rather than to say you are amazing! A virtual applause in a virtual world! This realization will be like one prick that can deflate you to the bottom of the pit of your virtual existence.
Want to turn the tides around, still having that sense of belonging and sense of achievement, developing that unshakable self-trust in yourself that you are worth more than what most people think you are and feel capable to contribute?
Pause your life for a moment. Delve on the primary reason why many of us invariably go through many such deflations and elations – delve on the reason that we are the most evolved of all the primates, but still a primate at the core. You may have your answers.
The next best evolved primate down the ladder closest to us is Orangutan. It has developed the most fundamental intelligence that we seem to have all but forgotten that we possess. It has a simple intelligence of using a pebble as a tool, using the minimum force required to break open a nut, and, keeping the nut intact no matter how big or small the nut is. It is like having a skill to use the tool and using that tool to achieve an outcome that made other Orangutans eager to learn that skill and thrive. We are much better at tools and by progressing continuously, and, repeatedly to acquire newer and complex skills we have progressed to create more complex tools.
Not only we created tools to sustain ourselves in the world we live in, but created tools to understand the world that we live in – through many collective and individual activities. These activities could have been similar to any other primate activities that could have had no meaning as economy-driven activities if money had not been created to be at the center of all progress we make. Some of the activities are purely to build relations and some others to make the world better for ourselves. In doing so we have been through many upheavals that has defined what civilization means many times over. Irrespective of the barriers that are still existing to communicate, we have communicated well to build the world as we see it today – a brick and mortar world of 20th century getting transformed slowly into a virtual technological world of 21st century that is redefining the meaning of civilization once again. But in recent times many such redefining activities are so fragile and virtual in nature, one prick – they will be gone.
You see and hear on a regular basis one study disproving another study, one fact conflicting the other, and words of wisdom becoming words of noise as we get connected to more parts of the world on a daily basis, forcing us to understand our world differently on a daily basis. The perils of getting connected virtually are many, the worst of all is losing that all important human touch.
This connection capable of establishing remote relationships, virtual relationships and more often than not capable of creating a false existence in a world that is increasingly becoming virtual in nature has to be reckoned with. We get affected personally and locally by what happens thousands of miles away. We squirm and become impatient even when are moving ever faster in cars and trains and planes to reach the world that has reached us virtually thousand times faster. While the reality of existence and the survival is still in brick and mortal world, we struggle to, rather we yearn to exist and survive in the virtual world more than we need to. One prick, it will be gone and will make us fall with a big thud back into the brick and mortar world that we had left long time back. We realize after the fall that the brick and mortar world is no more appealing as the virtual world. No wonder it gets us more detached from the world we physically exist to escape into a virtual world that is increasingly giving us the false hopes of success and self-denial of failures.
Those who exist in the brick and mortar world are creating tools to make majority of our future generation to live in the virtual world providing not only an escape from the reality and but also making us stay there longer. Is this sustainable?
One prick, it will be gone! What next? What now? What is best?
Time to make real learning happen?