The Man and The Machine

No, this is not about The Matrix. Nor does this revisit the world of Terminator. This is now, the present, the world of today.

What has man done to his life? Aeons ago, whence was created the Mankind, hasn't it always strived to increase its comfort level, reduce the dependency on vagaries of Mother Nature. But what has this endless, incessant pursuit for a better life brought us? More anxiety, more troubles, more stress, more discomfort, more discomfit? Why? What is the reason?

Campus placements have begun. Not really, but yeah, companies have started pouring in with their Pre-Placement Talks. Every other firm talks about "constant improvement" - "adding value". But why? Haven't we achieved too much already to create trouble for this earth. Haven't we already stretched it too much beyond from its equilibrium state? Isn't it too much of a risk to stretch earth more? What if the elastic limit is crossed? It might never be able to sustain life anymore! Worse, what if the yield point is crossed? No earth! A void - a black hole in the solar system. Atleast Mankind would have left its mark then. Ha!

Man of today is no less than a Machine. Working 70 hours a week is not a joke. Working! Then, account for a typical travel time of 2 hours daily. That makes it well above 80. And how many hours per week? 168, a mere 168. Take out the weekend. That leaves us with 120. That is, 40 hours of "lukkha" time for the weekdays. One has to sleep, eat, drink, bathe, rest, socialize, spend time with family, do household chores in all these 40 hours. A mere 8 hour per day. Whoever said that a 8 hour sleep per day is ideal for a healthy body.

Health complications? Well, then let us work even more, get some real great medical breakthroughs, and increase the "health" of mankind. Make it more efficient. Make it more "machine". Help it work more. Increase its throughput. For what? Why?

This seems akin to a typical unstable system encountered so frequently in control theory. A system with poles on the positive s-axis. A system with ever increasing amplitude. A system that keeps on driving up its power, until the underlying support-mechanism collapses altogether. A world pursuing endless materialistic gains, ever increasing material demands, will surely end only with the end of the ecosystem - the biosphere - the earth itself. So what! We have Mars and the Moon to go to! Why bother? Earn millions and billions and zillions. Hoard everything. Get every "luxury" in the life. But lose the most important resource for enjoying those luxuries - the Time.

What a sham! Why isn't anyone designing a PID controller? Why isn't anyone aiming for a pole-zero cancellation? Why isn't a single human being trying to move this and his world towards stability? Why is it that we are bothered about work and the quantity and the quality of work? Why not the quality of human life?

No answers. Only questions. Someone did say, raising questions is much more important, for humans, being rational and logical beings, can always find a solution for the questions raised. Hai koi jwaaab inn sawaalon ka?