Accepting 'modernity' as a Rabelaisian parody of anatomically modern human existence stemming from recent out-of-Africa (or Harappan or Mesopotamian civilizations) migration is the only way I can think of to deal with the confusing human conviction known as 'modernity.'
So, like everyone else, I marched on in the military parade of existence, marching left, right, left ... left, right, left, while embracing the human situation the way it currently is (and has always been) for all evolutionary purposes, as it were.
One day we'll all be gone, but I don't want to get entrapped in the dangerous tyranny of digital binaries: the slimy-green ones and zeros.
I'm aware I live a privileged lifestyle while poor people sleep rough and the streets outside my home pile with rubbish. Everyone knows no one can carry on their lives as if nothing is going to happen to our planet. Nature will not forgive our belligerent ways of existence, that is certain. I don't know … if our unbridled capacity of global supply-demand economic growth and expansion will have to find sustainable means to keep proceeding further for all species to survive.
I've fostered a veritable oversupply of litanies ranging from global to local to 'glocal’: widespread issues of capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, and ecological calamities that never cease to astonish me nowadays. Some of these things we created for ourselves so that we get to prosper economically are, in a sense, straining social cohesiveness and leading to a complete collapse of the rule of law in a supposedly well-functioning contemporary human society. Only I did not understand these things as I ought to have. It's preferable to realize something belatedly than not at all. (Is it true that I'm still here? On occasions like this, I catch myself brooding. A penny for my thoughts!).
A change in perspective
Now is the time for some fun: Everything is hard-hitting, Uriah Heepish, and toadying psychoanalytical make-believe that's identified with the trappings of the modern utopia of life, which is a typical human compulsion swearing by intelligent design over the natural evolutionary process. (Hooray for that?).
Regardless of the unresolved concerns, I can firmly state that I've ethically and karmically afforded democratic free will. Getting used to life's challenging and confusing realities will, I hope, become less of a burden in the future, now that I am fast approaching the juxtaposition of middle age, the age of 50: irretrievably surrendering my brain, hair, health, skin, eyes, and more at its nebulous altar. It's difficult to grow accustomed to the profound implications of grief and loss, but life teaches you how to cope with such actualities. I am ready to live again in the complete sense of the word, despite everything (even the daily domestic harangue one must endure).
While you chew on that, I steered away from that imaginary truck I used to uselessly hold on to certain things that this life has offered. Don't we all become unwitting representatives of the ultimate guilty party known as humanity if the surmise that modern life is still rubbish is a plausible argument? We, culture-bearing upright-walking species, are causing our own extinction by keeping the vestigial tail-like thing securely and invisibly fixed between the pair of legs that began wandering the Earth 315,000 years ago and exploiting nature beyond its generosity. Welcome to the 21st century.
Modern life is challenging. It's one large Kafkaesque bureaucratic agency that we continually submit to and live in complaisance to its whims and fancies, a litany of promises, and lack of performance.
There is now a palpable sense of worry-free freedom and adaptability, as well as a sense of relaxing complexity, in my risk-averse 'modern' thinking. I assume it's just survival instincts kicking in in good measure. Be that as it may, it is almost impossible to avoid being too risk-averse in the current scenario of war, death, and destruction. As a result, we keep moving forward unmindfully, pulverised by forces beyond our control. No matter how many arrivals of one potential crisis after another, most of the human populace continues to get tormented by the troubling realities of our day.
(To be continued)
By Arindam Moulick
[Parenthetically - All that is wanted is a radical shift in perspective, perhaps a further genetic drift in the direction that makes conscience sense for all adapted species to thrive on our blue planet and for us to stop trying to be God.
Not so easy, is it? Can we not stop trying to predict and control the future by letting Mother Nature take us all biologically forward? Why has it become so difficult for us to let Nature take its course? Human society is at a precipice, our future imperilled. I hope we don't succumb to our utopic vision of an Artificial Intelligence, AI-created reality undermining Nature and our morals long-dead.]
I'm aware I live a privileged lifestyle while poor people sleep rough and the streets outside my home pile with rubbish. Everyone knows no one can carry on their lives as if nothing is going to happen to our planet. Nature will not forgive our belligerent ways of existence, that is certain. I don't know … if our unbridled capacity of global supply-demand economic growth and expansion will have to find sustainable means to keep proceeding further for all species to survive.
I've fostered a veritable oversupply of litanies ranging from global to local to 'glocal’: widespread issues of capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, and ecological calamities that never cease to astonish me nowadays. Some of these things we created for ourselves so that we get to prosper economically are, in a sense, straining social cohesiveness and leading to a complete collapse of the rule of law in a supposedly well-functioning contemporary human society. Only I did not understand these things as I ought to have. It's preferable to realize something belatedly than not at all. (Is it true that I'm still here? On occasions like this, I catch myself brooding. A penny for my thoughts!).
A change in perspective
Now is the time for some fun: Everything is hard-hitting, Uriah Heepish, and toadying psychoanalytical make-believe that's identified with the trappings of the modern utopia of life, which is a typical human compulsion swearing by intelligent design over the natural evolutionary process. (Hooray for that?).
Regardless of the unresolved concerns, I can firmly state that I've ethically and karmically afforded democratic free will. Getting used to life's challenging and confusing realities will, I hope, become less of a burden in the future, now that I am fast approaching the juxtaposition of middle age, the age of 50: irretrievably surrendering my brain, hair, health, skin, eyes, and more at its nebulous altar. It's difficult to grow accustomed to the profound implications of grief and loss, but life teaches you how to cope with such actualities. I am ready to live again in the complete sense of the word, despite everything (even the daily domestic harangue one must endure).
While you chew on that, I steered away from that imaginary truck I used to uselessly hold on to certain things that this life has offered. Don't we all become unwitting representatives of the ultimate guilty party known as humanity if the surmise that modern life is still rubbish is a plausible argument? We, culture-bearing upright-walking species, are causing our own extinction by keeping the vestigial tail-like thing securely and invisibly fixed between the pair of legs that began wandering the Earth 315,000 years ago and exploiting nature beyond its generosity. Welcome to the 21st century.
Modern life is challenging. It's one large Kafkaesque bureaucratic agency that we continually submit to and live in complaisance to its whims and fancies, a litany of promises, and lack of performance.
There is now a palpable sense of worry-free freedom and adaptability, as well as a sense of relaxing complexity, in my risk-averse 'modern' thinking. I assume it's just survival instincts kicking in in good measure. Be that as it may, it is almost impossible to avoid being too risk-averse in the current scenario of war, death, and destruction. As a result, we keep moving forward unmindfully, pulverised by forces beyond our control. No matter how many arrivals of one potential crisis after another, most of the human populace continues to get tormented by the troubling realities of our day.
We - the people claiming squatters right here and forever stuck in squalid apartments - can hope to weather adequately and satisfactorily all of these if, and only if, we track down ways to stop over-exploiting nature and put a tab on our breeding potential - the explosion of the human population that craves nothing but materialistic ideals.
One thing is clear: the conventional concept of a development index (trillion-dollar economy! Yeah, what next?) in terms of a capitalist world economy should go if humanity is to survive on Earth. This wild ride ain’t forever.
(To be continued)
By Arindam Moulick
End of part 2 (of 3)
Read part 1 of the above essay: Discordant Notes - part 1
Read part 1 of the above essay: Discordant Notes - part 1