Is the world going to end soon...

There have been talks that nature has taken lot of beating through the hands of mankind and its going to take revenge. We have been noticing so many natural disasters within short spans of time and the scale of damage is increasing with time. May be all these are signs of what's left and like dinosaurs we may also become extinct. The environmentalists have been raising concerns since years that mankind needs to mend its habits and be more kind to nature else the future generations will face the brunt. And now with the theories of global warming and consequent rise  in sea level strengthening and depletion of resources coming in, we are forced to think that we are the ones to blame. May be the world might not end but we may face a drastic change, may be a catastrophic event or end of the so important natural resources. The immediate question is how will we survive specially with no natural resources on which we are so dependent. Well I have different thoughts on the concerns.

• Natural resources may deplete but we will never run out of resources. We may not use Oil as the major source of energy in the future buts that would be because we would become more efficient and we would find better sources of energy. We came out of stone age not because we ran out of stone but because we found better ways to light a fire or make wheels out of. And same happened to say coal. At one point coal seemed to be a very important resource and worth preserving at any costs but see we have found alternatives to coal.
• The ozone layer is damaged and which is increasing the global warming and we are facing the consequences. My question is are we sure we are doing this? Who knows if that's the course of nature. The poor dinosaurs did not use chlorofluorocarbons and still had to die because a stupid meteor decided to hit the mother earth. Since we have the capacity to think, we assume that we can control nature - the very nature who created us. We readily form hypothesis with the very little facts available to us and try to control the circumstances. We forget that what we know is a fraction of what the universe knows. We can't even use more than a little fraction of our brain even after being aware of the capabilities it has and we make the mistake of predicting the future. So my point is that we should stop beating our heads on what will happen in future and how can we control it. We can not control anything. We can not even control things that actually are in our control. 

So lets just chill out and enjoy whatever we have. I am not saying go and burn plastic because the nature is anyway taking its course. The nature will still take its course but plastics smell bad when burned so avoid it!

Future Shock..

"Too much change in too short a period of time"
....that's how the legendary socialist and futurist Alvin Toffler had predicted in the 70s. And how true it is. The world is shrinking, time is flying faster than ever before (or its just me), innovations are happening at the speed of light and to add to our troubles; information has become way too accessible and technology has taken over our lives. All this availability of required and not-so-required things is making my span of attention and interest shorter and shorter by the day. I want more, I want something new to entertain myself.

• Online chatting (specially with strangers) - Bored!
• SMSing (looked like a necessity in college days) - Bored!
• Mobile phones (never thought that I will survive without it) - Bored!
• Social networking (first orkut was he king and then the throne was captured by facebook) - Bored!
• Online games (there was a time - not too long back- when I could spend entire day and night just playing games on the net) - Bored!

Now mind craves for something new...to learn and exploit it...and then forget about it. But amidst all this, all this obsession about NEW and exciting, the few things which never can be replaced are the things which are there since centuries, may be since the beginning of the mankind. These are the activities, things, experiences which still excite me or are still there with me. Things like:

• Going out and playing some real sports - Hit!
• Reading physical books (specially outside) - Hit!
• Doing calculations on paper (yeah I don't prefer excel sheet for simpler stuff) - Hit!
• Going out and meeting people (rather than spending life on second life) - Hit!
• Watering plants - Hit!
• Writing on paper instead of on computer - Hit!
  

Having said all this, I still crave for something new and better. I guess when Mr. Toffler did his predictions (which are turning out to be damn right), he would not have imagined how it is going to confuse us and complicate things for us. We are stuck between things we enjoy and things we should enjoy and the difference is minimizing with time. As the post progressed, I realized that span of attention is not the only issue here. The major issue is a confused and contradicting mind. The definition of pleasure is changing, its becoming more of what should be enjoyable according to certain set of definitions against what actually is. And I don't want that.

I Me Myself..

The woods are lovely, dark and deep;
But I have promises to keep;
And miles to fo before I sleep;
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost

These lines are so true and relevant. Today I am actually feeling the meaning.