Ever since childhood, I came across stories of the end of
the world. As a fragile mind growing up in a country like India, it was often a
scary thought to be around when the world ends. During the teenage years, I
heard every from rumors that visitors from outer space are coming to Earth in
order to survive in the Earth’s atmosphere (this was close to the release of
the movie Independence Day) to the predictions given by Nastrodamus where he
postulated that the world as we know it is going to cease to exist at a certain
point in time – more importantly, during my lifetime!
The Mayan calendar was the cherry on top on all this end of
the world news that was falling on my delicate mind. All these news pointed to
2012! So, as any ignorant kid would do, I thought about it for a while and then
remained unobvious to it!
Fast forward to 2012 January – the world isn’t bracing
itself for the end! In fact, it has become so self-involved, that it is oblivious
to the fact – a Mayan fact – that there isn’t a calendar beyond 21st
December 2012!! But then I looked closely and found out something pretty
interesting.
The world has come a long way in the last decade. Cellphones
which were considered a luxury back then have now become a necessity. Mobile
internet which was non-existent has now involved into its 4th
Generation. However, more importantly, the attitudes of the people have changed
drastically since a decade. Moreover, on the flip side, changes have also come
in for the worst.
In order to support these humongous changes in our day to
day lives, humans have exploited natural resources to the nth degree. In order
to make our lives cooler, we have heated up the Earth. In order for us to live
in luxurious apartments, we have deprived our wildlife of their own homes! All
these stem from a commonality which has become a dormant but yet essential catalyst
in the “progress” which the world has done in the last decade – competition.
Competition and power go hand in hand. In fact, one can say
that people compete so that they can hold a place of power. So, the chase for
power is always present in smaller or larger proportions around us. In our
workplace, chase for power is in form of promotions, salary hikes etc. Whereas,
in the open world, chase for power comes in multiple forms. The only thing that
doesn’t change is the outcome of the chase. Humans have become so blinded in
their chase for power that they no longer able to see that they actions have a
degrading effect on the things around them.
So, such a chase always comes at a cost – in some cases the
cost is merely few thousand bucks or in some cases, the cost is more severe. In
India, the highly visible chase for power comes in form of political ambition.
This thirst for power has left a fairly large negative impact on the country’s
administration and law/order capabilities. The result is an inflated price
index, a slowing down economy and a huge trade deficit. Although, the more
informed people might argue but the fact remains that corruption, as a
byproduct of the chase for power, has crippled the country to such a level that
very strict reforms are required. If these reforms would actually change the
ways of the politicians is a discussion for another day.
Panning out to the entire world, we observed the 1st
phase of recession during the 2008-09 financial season which opened our eyes to
a grim reality – not everything can be taken on credit. However, the main focal
item which led to this meltdown was also competition and the effort to strive
for market domination. The financial firm’s readiness to dispense so much
credit for so fewer guarantees was taken very lightly and to some extend bit
literally by the consumer. Now, comes the fun part – why did the consumer did
what he did? Interestingly, this can also be attributed to the race to succeed,
the race to survive.
Are human beings becoming insecure? Are they becoming too
self involved? Are we evolving into a species which cannot co-exist with each
other and fellow mammals? These are the questions which seem to outline the
circumstances of what we are experiencing today. The fact remains that humans
are degrading themselves and the environment they live in order to achieve some
false sense of power. Right now, most of the world economies are on the brink
of disaster and those who aren’t, have such a bad governance that the very
people designated to ensure their well beings are slowly but surely eating away
at the environment (natural as well as man made).
Maybe our forefathers were right. Maybe Nastrodamus and the
Mayans knew this stage of human evolution. Maybe, they knew that although
humans would grow to be sophisticated, they would still retain the raw animal instincts
underneath. So, the next stage of evolution would hint at humans devouring
others of the same and different species in order to fulfill the one urge that
has driven us all these thousands of years – the instinct to survive.
This could mean that the reason the Mayans stopped writing
their calendar beyond 21st December 2012 was becoz they couldn’t vision
a human race beyond that point in time. Maybe, they couldn’t just recognize
what had become of a human being. All this points to a simple yet somewhat
logical reality – The world isn’t coming to an end, we humans are merely going
to step into the next age of evolution. The world is going to reach the
pinnacle of development before crashing down to the point where a mental and physiological
rebuilt is warranted.
The world isn’t going to come to an end – We humans are just
going to make it implode….
