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Where were we? Where are we? Where are we going to be?


“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation...tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.” ~Jean Arp

You might have seen even in your school days how the human evolution has happened over time, but what will come in next is questionable. Can it be the last person above?

One day a farmer walked into a gymnasium, and he saw people running as fast as they can, but…. no one moved forward, that surprised him. But, once he found out what is really happening he said himself. “What a waste of energy. If I had these people doing the same thing in my paddy field, I would have given a rest for my cows and myself. A fisherman walked in next, and he saw people rowing as fast as they can, but the boat did not move, and he thought “poor fellows, because they cannot afford a ride in an actual boat they have stuck with a toy.” Finally came a porter, and he saw, people lifting things sitting, standing and sleeping, and he wondered “O my god !, what I do as my job is carry things from one place to another on my shoulders, but these people do it in all sought of ways, might be a highly paid job than what I am doing”.

That’s how people who are close to nature have seen what people who are close to the technology does. Sometimes it looks funny and stupid because it lacks the relationship with nature. The entire configuration of body, what we have today is a gift by nature, for what our ancients have done since million, billion years ago. Being like the first person in the picture above to come up to the fifth person they have really proved that they need such a strong and flexible body to serve the nature itself.

But today do we deserve our legs to be so strong for our day today activities. We have wheeled chairs to move on the floor within the buildings, elevators to go up and down, vehicles to travel where ever we want and aero plane even to fly. Where do we need our legs? Then our hands do we really need rotating hands? How often do we fully rotate our hands in day today activities? With all these points we can describe the modern evolution as in the following picture.

Wow..What an achievement we have almost reached the place where we have started.

Isaac Asimov has said in his book of Science and Nature Quotations in 1988, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom”. It is true that technological innovations have done lot of comfort to human life, yet it shows that technology is a good servant of human, not a master as nature has been.

E.F. Schumacher has stated in his book Small is Beautiful, “The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology”.

The technology always tries to keep human comfortable, while nature always strive to keep him healthy. Technology says “I can make the human control the entire world with a single finger”. Nature questions “what is the entire human body made for then? “

With the technology, we are virtually everywhere, but actually nowhere.

“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers” says Sydney J. Harris.

According to a research done among the software engineers in United States, the results showed that they tend to be angry when they are given unstructured and un-logical information in their real life, due to the reason that they have started thinking like the computers, working with it.

Karl Marx has said “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people”. This has been proved true today.

Even with these types of warnings the human tend to worship the technology and allow it to drive their life. That’s why the greatest scientist ever, Albert Einstein has said “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

Because we don’t use the scotting pan in our toilets we do scotting in the gym, because we don’t walk enough during our natural day today life we do it on the treadmill, because we don’t work hard with our body during our job we do it artificially in the gym. The real reason why we do this is to convince the nature that we need our body to be working properly. The question is can the nature be fooled with the things we do artificially and convince that we really need our body working properly. According to what has happened so far it shows that we cannot fool the nature. Increase number of heart attacks, cholesterol patients, low and high blood pressure fatalities and diabetic victims shows that nature knows what really happens. It is the natural exercise what nature expects not the artificial.

There are many simple things that we could do to improve our relationship with the nature to make ourselves healthy according to research findings by different researches.

Laugh out loud :- Just anticipating a happy, funny event can raise levels of endorphins and other pleasure-inducing hormones and lower production of stress hormones. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, tested 16 men who all agreed they thought a certain videotape was funny. Half were told three days in advance they would watch it. They started experiencing biological changes right away. When they actually watched the video, their levels of stress hormones dropped significantly, while their endorphin levels rose 27 percent and their growth hormone levels (indicating benefit to the immune system) rose 87 percent.

Walk mindfully :- You probably already know that exercise is better than tranquilizers for relieving anxiety and stress. But what you do with your mind while you're walking can make your walk even more beneficial. In a study called the Ruth Stricker Mind/Body Study, researchers divided 135 people into five groups of walkers for 16 weeks. Group one walked briskly, group two at a slow pace, and group three at a slow pace while practicing "mindfulness," a mental technique to bring about the relaxation response, a physiological response in which the heart rate slows and blood pressure drops. This group was asked to pay attention to their footsteps, counting one, two, one, two, and to visualize the numbers in their mind. Group four practiced a form of tai chi, and group five served as the control, changing nothing about their lives. The group practicing mindfulness showed significant declines in anxiety and had fewer negative and more positive feelings about themselves. Overall they experienced the same stress-reducing effects of the brisk walkers. Better yet, the effects were evident immediately.

Give priority to close relationships :- One study of more than 1,300 men and women of various ages found that those who had a lot of supportive friends were much more likely to have healthier blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar metabolism, and stress hormone levels than those with two or fewer close friends. Women, and to a lesser extent men, also seemed to benefit from good relationships with their parents and spouses. Studies also find that people who feel lonely, depressed, and isolated are three to five times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who have feelings of love, connection, and community.

Take care of the soul :- In study after study, actively religious people are happier and cope better with crises, according to David Myers, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. For many people faith provides a support community, a sense of life's meaning, feelings of ultimate acceptance, a reason to focus beyond yourself, and a timeless perspective on life's woes. Even if you're not religious, a strong spirituality may offer similar benefits.

Count your blessings :- People who pause each day to reflect on some positive aspect of their lives (their health, friends, family, freedom, education, etc.) experience a heightened sense of well-being.

Nature decides your life treat it as the master, do not depend too much on the technology, make it your servant.


Speech by Shervon Fernandopulle
At the grand finale of
HNB Toastmasters best speaker competition
(shervonf@gmail.com)