The boss called one of his employees into the office. “Anil,” he said, “you’ve been with the company for a year. You started off in the post room, one week later you were promoted to a sales position, and one month after that you were promoted to district manager of the sales department. Just four short months later, you were promoted to vice- chairman. Now it’s time for me to retire, and I want you to take over the company. What do you say to that?”
“Thanks,” said the employee.
“Thanks?” the boss replied. “Is that all you can say?”
“I suppose not,” the employee said. “Thanks, Dad.”
It does not matter anymore that we took a couple of million years to develop into what we see in the mirror today but we seem to be in no mood to continue the process at the same speed.
The experts tell us that it takes fixed time frames to complete infancy, adolescence, adult hood and whatever else that comes in between maturity and geriatrics, but somehow the calculations are not quite adding up.
The developmental journey of humans was a long drawn process but today because of environmental pressures causing intense competition, we are being forced to mature much faster.
Focus is the essence. Armed with technology and information we no longer need to become Columbus to discover the new world. It has become unnecessary to emphasize the development of skills of discovery, innovation or creativity as much as the skills of application with precision.
Everyone seems to be growing up faster and are capable of doing things that they are too young to do. And I am not only talking about sex. But even if I do take sex as an example, the modern fledgling has scored over us again thanks to television, which did more for them than the Kamasutra did to ten generations of our ancestors.
When I see the quiz contests of school children I am quite convinced that they have more evolved neuronic connections in the brain which enables them to learn about the exact number of chairs in every room of the United Nations and the names of six hundred kinds of sharks with equal élan.
The ancient Hindu scriptures talked about 4 distinct life stages — student, householder, retiree and sanyasi –
The whole process of personal and social evolution that took a life-time.
We have recently realized that, ever since the word play got replaced with learn, our babies are born grown up — Generations later, like the magic beans that grow into the clouds in a single night, our future test tube babies will thrive.
So what has happened to the time cycles of learning and growing? Have homo -sapiens finally managed to find a new shortcut to the evolutionary process? Yes, I think so. Much like what science fiction talks about worm holes that allow you to journey across different parts of the universe in moments.
A long time ago when Alvin Toffler talked about Future Shock, we realized that survival is about change management. But it is only when we have been transported into this reality do we realize that change cannot be managed. And in spite of the technology at our finger tips it also cannot be controlled.
For a short while we had become dinosauric in our existence, focused on the maintenance and preservation of our form, unable to grow beyond our own self-preservation. Today we have simply given up. Somewhat like the old saying that says when rape is inevitable you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
Andrew Carnegie, who was once considered to be the steel king of USA, stated that “It is a matter of course for individuals to work hard in society. But whether one becomes successful in life or not depends on how he uses his time from 6 to 8 pm; after work.” What is six to eight after work? Half the world cannot figure out the concept of after work and the other half cannot figure out the connotations of what comes before work.
There is no point in asking questions that no one has answers for but I can’t help it if I get an immense sense of happiness from knowing that you are as lost as I am.
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
