suicidal planet.

why do none of us believe in a long and happy ever after anymore.

why is 2012 so deeply imprinted in our minds that we almost believe it will happen. why is everything we do today doesnt seem to be with a sense of where it will be 50 years from now. why cant we look at the future, straight in the eye and feel happy/hopeful about it? why are we focused on doom so much?

hindu mythology calls this period as the 'kalyug' or the time of instant redemption. it is a period where all actions are punished/rewarded almost instantaneously. it is also known as the dark ages, or the time when the truth and the righteous have to struggle for recognition and existence. the sins rule the game and all that exists around us is bad influence. it only gets better, the next phase according to the legend, is 'pralaya' or destruction., the end of the world. a mercyless reboot.
then there is nostradamus. he was pretty scary too. he predicted that the world would end this millinea. we have all been sitting at the edge of our seats waiting for the other shoe to fall. almost certain that the other shoe will fall soon. believing in our hearts that the world is going to end. and we are going to be around to see it.
the bible also predicts the end of the world soon. and not just the end of the world as a destruction of the planet, the end of the world as in the end of all that we know as creation. i wish we are wrong. i hope and pray that the world has a longer life than i do. i sincerely pray (if i have to) that the world will be a better place once day. that utopia will not be a bad thing and that the zeitgeist will cease to exist as a thing to be addressed, but will become as a statement of pride. that today we make tomorrow better.

i tend to quote the matrix on this one 'we see reality in misery' we ourselves dont believe that the future will be bright,


but can we change this obsession with the dark side? i dont think so. for two primary reasons.

one, we are short sighted, we dont dream of the future, we dream of a better today. better standards of living. better cars, better homes, better education, better vacations, better everything. not new, but better. i haven't, in a while heard of any significant breakthrough that we weren't genuinely surprised by. pluto is NOT a planet, or better yet, almost a planet. but have we found something beyond that? have we even begun with the idea of a possible USS enterprise? have we actively made progress in finding a new one, or a new solar system. i don't know. the last time we put a man on the moon was in 1972. what happened then? have we found out everything there is to find out about the moon? does the moon hold nothing of learnable value for us?
we are so busy waging wars and protecting territories, that we forget to look beyond. we are going smaller and deeper while ignoring the wider and farther.
what i do know is that we have become unimaginative. we cant imagine beyond 10 years. our goals are shorter, more attainable. i don't remember the last time a kid said that he wants to be an astronaut. i cant remember a time when a kid didn't want to do what his dad was doing.

secondly, research shows, that we are at present going through the most unhappy phase of our evolution. this after the holucast. our society and culture is ridden with holes. we tend to look for the cloud in the silver lining. once we start looking for holes, we look for the fixes, once we find the fixes then tend to capitalize on the fixes, if we dont find the fixes, we tend to shop... if everyone will be happy, who will buy the fixes, or the replacement to the fixes? the capitalist system will collapse and money will be of next to no value. and this cannot happen. we cannot let people get happy under any circumstances. happy people are just bad for business. what if we change the assumption? what if we say, happy people make better consumers, only if the consumables are made better, then the question of quality comes into play, as long as you make quality items, happy folks will buy it. a good car will get brought, advertisements or not.

and therin lies the tragic flaw, we then have to innovate, we cannot reproduce, we have to invent. get off our lazy behinds and make something. until now, the shortsighted version had been paying off pretty well.

low quality + investment + demands (or short supply) = high returns.

but since everyones happy, the consumption patterns will change, they will no longer be linked to the happiness index but to the quality index. which means that people will no longer look at flash value, or street credits, but for quality of goods, environmental impact, because we have enough, we only need replacements not additions. everyones happy with what they have, they want new when they want better. zen all over!

the flipside: by making quality = returns we are adding the risk of failure to the whole equation. making manufacturers nervous... rejected again.

so is there a solution. i would like to believe so. i would like to think that at some point we all truely acknowledge that chaos will exist, we are all ok with being miserable from time to time and that good time are always around the corner as opposed to the other way around. we dont live on a linear chain of consumption but on a cyclic one. hand me down is the new cool and such... like the schoridingers cat experiment, where we are assuming that the solution will be one or another. and hence both simultainously exist for a finite time, and then it shall go back to an absolute (the cat is either dead or alive...). that the final solution will always be absolute. but i think that is where the problem lies. there can never be an absolute. it will be 2 things at the same time, waxing and waning in importance but present and accounted for at all times. we need to focus on a better today, and a future that we never thought of. we need to bring back the use of imagination as a need and not a sign of insanity, we need kids to paint more than sunsets houses and ducks. we need imagination and we cant need it sooner!

(a positive outcome of me being lazy, and being too egoistic to give up so soon, added with the difficulty of coming up with something new each 3 days is that now i can start finishing all the bad ideas i dropped with good reason. this is the first of many back up plans i have for me to get thru my 106 post this year. people of the world... one at a time please....! )