Internet (data transfer) speed of gigabit per second is imminent. However, we have no idea what such crazy speed is good for.
From this news item —
Kevin Lo, Head of Google’s fiber access program speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Paris was pretty candid when he said:
Time to ponder.
We will invent things that we don't need for being happy. Then we will invent uses for those things. By doing so we will make our lives and the happiness dynamics more complex. Then we will wonder about why with all the comforts people are increasingly dissatisfied with life, why happiness is becoming so difficult!
We are progressing.
I wonder: Haven't we created everything we need for living a happy life? If yes, then why create anything more? But once we get used to everything, the excitement subsides and ennui takes place. So, we are bound to want to create new things to make life (more) interesting. And as the elements comprising our happiness grow in number, more vulnerable happiness becomes. More complex the underlying dynamics, lesser the control.
Maybe we have forgotten that happiness comes from having meaningful relationships with other human beings. But where are all the people! Why are we all so isolated in this increasingly crowded world? Maybe everyone is obsessed with things. Everyone is trying to work their way through this complex mess that modern life is. We don't have time for people – for doing anything lasting and meaningful with people, that is.
Are human brains developed beyond optimum? Is it possible to create things that don't further complicate our lives? Maybe not. What do you think?
From this news item —
Kevin Lo, Head of Google’s fiber access program speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Paris was pretty candid when he said:
If you put a gigabit in people’s homes they will be inspired to find new ways to use it. We have no idea why you need a gigabit today, but when we all had dial up you could not possibly imagine watching video over them. It’s not about doing email faster, it’s about doing those new things that you don’t do today.
Time to ponder.
We will invent things that we don't need for being happy. Then we will invent uses for those things. By doing so we will make our lives and the happiness dynamics more complex. Then we will wonder about why with all the comforts people are increasingly dissatisfied with life, why happiness is becoming so difficult!
We are progressing.
I wonder: Haven't we created everything we need for living a happy life? If yes, then why create anything more? But once we get used to everything, the excitement subsides and ennui takes place. So, we are bound to want to create new things to make life (more) interesting. And as the elements comprising our happiness grow in number, more vulnerable happiness becomes. More complex the underlying dynamics, lesser the control.
Maybe we have forgotten that happiness comes from having meaningful relationships with other human beings. But where are all the people! Why are we all so isolated in this increasingly crowded world? Maybe everyone is obsessed with things. Everyone is trying to work their way through this complex mess that modern life is. We don't have time for people – for doing anything lasting and meaningful with people, that is.
Are human brains developed beyond optimum? Is it possible to create things that don't further complicate our lives? Maybe not. What do you think?
If the world were functioning on happiness then, as you say, we have the means already. But the world functions on money and greed and that's why more things are invented that people are then led to believe they need to be happy. Everyone wants to buy the fix for getting happy when it's inside us all already and is free. It's simple, stop thinking about what we need and go do some good for other people and give away more than you thought you could survive without and ssmile at strangers and be kind and do an activity which you can lose yourself in and just be happy :)
ReplyDeletewe need something new all the time, everyone needs it.. we get bored even with humans.. no matter what we do we cant stop getting bored.. unless we are talking about some drug
ReplyDeleteIn "Man's Search for Meaning," Viktor Frankl talks about the 2 elements vital to human happiness. They are 1. love, and 2. meaningful work. By love, he is not talking about romantic love, although that is alright, too; he means having a sense of your community and your commitment to the other people in your life. Giving back. Or, as you said, Darshan, having meaningful relationships.
ReplyDeleteBy meaningful work, he means something you enjoy and feel good about. For many people, this means being creative, right? And for some, such creativity involves inventing new things that other people are willing to pay money for. So you see, the amount of goods people can buy is closely related to the creative process; one makes people happy, the other, not so much. But you can't stop that process, nor should any prohibition of it be the goal, EVER, because doing so would violate the basic principle that a person should have the freedom to do what he wants with his life (as long as it doesn't hurt others). The only thing you can do, if you are concerned about it, is to share a message of personal development so that people who are on the "things" level of happiness can at least have an opportunity to think about why their things don't make them very happy. And yes, I believe everybody is capable of hearing this message and changing, regardless of the number of distractions in their lives.
To answer your questions at the end, no, yes, and I think you are putting too much emphasis on material goods, which misses the deeper issues involved.
Thanks for a thoughtful essay,
Kitty
That's right. Meaningful engagement with people is important as well as meaningful work is. So, being creative is fine. It really does provide meaning in life.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not with being creative – inventing things, that is. Maybe this is an apt moment to look closely at what drives the corporations (for they are the ones creating things) today. Is it the inner creativity seeking expression, or desire for money, power, social status etc? I think, the answer to this brings an important insight. Our world is no more so simple where “work” is something people do to add value to the society. Today, people hardly even enjoy the work they are doing, most of them. They are working, for otherwise they would starve. Given a choice would choose career with highest returns, for example. Is it creativity calling, or something else? Money, status, etc. It is important to see where the motive to work is coming from, because the fruits of that work depend on it.
Look at an average employee of any corporation. Do they seem like happy people? I don’t see that. They are bored with their jobs. (At least, they don’t “love” it.) Finance, manufacturing, software designing, engineering, take any field. People perform repetitive tasks at their workplaces. Offer them 50 percent pay hike and they won’t think once before shifting jobs. It’s their helplessness they keeps them tied to their work routines. (They crave week-ends.) But the corporations they are working for keep creating new products and emptying them in people’s lives.
So, while what you say is absolutely right – that is, 1) Love and 2) Meaningful work are vital to having a good life. However, the work most people are doing today is not that “meaningful work”. Yes, it does provide meaning to them, for it keeps them engaged with life and so on; in that sense it may be called meaningful. But I think the real meaningful work is that when one has a personal intention of adding value to the society by creating/doing something. That is almost never a case in today’s societies.
Maybe that’s because at the national level we are obsessed with GDP, and not with real welfare; and at the individual level the obsession is with the perverse meanings given to us by advertisements and similarly profit-oriented mass media, and not with the real worthwhile living.
Q. Who will even tell people what worthwhile living is?
A. Not mass media for sure! Studying the (formation of) traditional values might help.
But expecting people to do that in this environment? One must be kidding!
Technology can always be trusted for comfort not for happiness. Human emotions are strange and elusive. Give some one a candy a day and soon that person will loose interest in candy!
ReplyDeleteTechnical advancements in pursuit of happiness will never reach their goal!
//Give some one a candy a day and soon that person will loose interest in candy!
ReplyDeleteYes, but then the solution of giving him more candies doesn't seem good anymore. Because if we go on increasing the number of candies (sci and tech developments) that way, after certain point it has ill effects on his health, and subsequently on happiness! Maybe, we could look for something else which maintains his good spirits, and also isn't harmful for his health. Like, inventing new festivals to celebrate with family and close friends, and new arts, new & simpler ways of doing things whereby life becomes less tiresome and more fun, ... It's very urgent to infuse worthwhile meanings in people's lives somehow, to prevent ideological chaos and alienation that's becoming defining feature of modernity in the absence of God and traditional wisdom. I am not totally sure if it is possible, for I am aware of the deeper issues involved in it. But if it's not possible, then we must be developed beyond optimum.
Modern day technological developments are exacerbating the situation by giving people more ways to indulge themselves (Facebook, gadgets,...), instant gratification is subtly removing the essence from life, mass media is popularizing individualism, people are becoming narcissists everywhere, ...