Ours is a habit of getting bored at repetitions – be it the same pleasure or the same mouth watering dish. The thrilling portions of human history are those that talk about revolutions, which changed the daily chorus of humans drastically. The agricultural revolution that swept through almost all ancient cultures some 12,000 years ago was the first of major revolutions that shook us. Thereafter we see people living in small societies and also farming done in organized patterns.
In our early days, as Yuval Noah Harari puts it in his famous book ‘Sapiens’, “…. our foragers mastered not only the surrounding world of animals, plants and objects, but also the internal world of bodies and their own senses. They listened to the slightest movement in the grass to learn whether a snake might be lurking there. They carefully observed the foliage of tress in order to discover fruits, beehives and birds nests. They moved with a minimum effort and noise, and knew how to sit, walk and run in the most agile and efficient manner …….. They had the physical dexterity that people today are unable to achieve even after years of practicing yoga or t’ai chi.”
Those revolutionist foragers also would have been looking for more changes, just like us. Whenever I ask myself, which was better – the ancient or the most modern, I’m confused. Though totally agricultural dependent and used to only organic treatments, they were not free from life threats. A surprise draught or a flood or a crop disaster was frequent. Wars also contributed heavily in keeping the Sapien population under check. Today we have medical experts specialized on right thumbs and left thumbs. But the truth is that death and accident possibilities haven’t changed even a little. If it were snowfalls, snakebites, epidemics or wars that cut the life span of those foragers, today the reasons are different but the result is the same. Instead of snakebites we have road accidents; instead of cholera we have AIDS and cancer and wars continue to remain common. Absolute safety is still miles away. Is it not better to be content with what we have, rather than spending our energy on a long chase for more safety and more satisfaction standards?
Joseph Mattappally
No comments:
Post a Comment