the perfect world theory
| the child | the system | the climate | the chaos
| the law | the order | the perfect world
| the final message
Why a Perfect World Is Possible
For a Perfect World, this is what we have to do first: No compromises
should be made on child well being. No child should be allowed to be
born into an unhealthy environment. If possible, this should be made
sure of even before the child’s parents are married. That is what I
meant by no compromises. The human being is extremely valuable. Today,
you and I will not be treated with the respect we deserve until and
unless our forefathers thought of us as extremely valuable, worthy of
careful handling and deserving of a healthy environment. We wouldn’t be
normal, healthy, thinking individuals if no one saw to it that we were
in environments that fostered healthiness, normality and intellectual
growth.
A perfect society sounds like a dream. We have to start believing that
dreams can become reality. But we have to start from the basics. We
cannot hope to provide employment and opportunities for the youth if we
cannot provide food and shelter for the baby child. We cannot hope for
a crime-free society without first nipping off the buds of crime before
they get a chance to form, i.e., preventing the very circumstances that
promote and sow the seeds of crime. Do we want a perfect society or do
we want the police to keep their hands full? Or are we afraid of
change? Are we afraid that any existing institutions will be scrapped?
Well then, if the answer is Yes, the next time something bad happens to
any of our loved ones, we will be responsible for it at least partly,
because maybe it wouldn’t have happened if we had tried to make the
world a little more perfect. We did not do what we could to prevent the
misery and hence we are partly responsible for bringing it upon
ourselves or upon someone else. On the other hand, if we want to live
in a perfect world and not just experience them in movies, let’s get
busy plugging the holes in our current social systems. The large gaping
holes that I’ve discussed are the ones that I consider as greatly
meriting all our attention and efforts.
People forget their dreams and try to think of and adjust to reality.
They say to others: “Forget your dreams; see how harsh and unrelenting
the reality is.“ If reality is so harsh, then why do we keep bringing
more humans into this world? Let us stop, make things better and then
think of bringing more people into this world. Why do we give up so
easily? Let’s make it happen. Let's not fight exclusively for animals.
Lets not fight exclusively for the aged. Instead lets fight the cause
of all these problems, the overpopulation on earth and consequent
depletion of resources which has led to overexploitation of some
resources and neglect of others as well as the scarcity and poverty
facing humans. All we have to do is ensure that humans are not born
when there are no sufficient resources for allowing them to be treated
with equality, justice and fairness in all matters. Otherwise, we will
continue to feel that our efforts hardly matter, which quite often is
the truth.
The greatness of great people… Is it really greatness? True, they did
the best they could with existing conditions and achieved what they
wanted to. But it's only so in comparison with others. In comparison
with others of their age and time, they probably got better food,
shelter and healthier environments. I have done a study of great people
and what I think is that they tried their best to make the minuses in
their lives pluses. The few minuses. They had far more pluses than
minuses. This inclination to make minuses pluses was an inborn trait,
but that alone is not the cause of their greatness. Proper care in
childhood is the most common factor in the childhoods of the great.
Their basics were solid and tough, which is why deep inside they felt
that they had something that could beat the odds. Simply put, their
childhoods were better than others’ childhoods.
“Child is the gift of God to a family. To destroy the child is to
destroy the presence of God in the world.” – Mother Theresa. The state
of the world is such that the need to destroy children before they are
born is greater now than ever before. Why? There is not enough for that
child. There is not enough for more children each year. They either
have to live with less or be killed, if their parents decide that their
child should not live miserably (abortion). The child, therefore, is
the basic block of mankind and his society. If the child is insecure,
mankind is insecure and he can expect calamities, bewildering him one
after the other, until he is completely destroyed.
It is only when the need arises, as now, that humans fight with each
other, commit crime and destroy life and prosperity. Like any other
species, we do not fight with or kill, the members of our own species
unless we are absolutely driven to it. The crime, hatred, violence and
discord among humans for centuries is supposed to be our natural state,
but it is not. Sages and saints make it look even more so that peace
and prosperity has to be striven for and is away from the easy reach of
humanity. But we are so much more intrinsically peace-loving than we
think, it’s not just due to external factors that our behavior takes a
wrong turn, but also the centuries-old wrong perception that man is
intrinsically evil. We become evil only when we are threatened. When
our possessions are threatened. When our loved ones are threatened.
When our beliefs are threatened. Or when such behavior becomes a habit
and then a part of your character, which is the reason for most of the
evil in the world. Unrelenting threats to survival of oneself or one’s
social or personal necessities, mainly during childhood, causes a
habitual response of fighting back, which then becomes an acquired part
of your character, a part which then asserts itself even when there is
no threat, causing you to appear as evil. We can become the most evil
of all the people we know when our very life is threatened. Denial of
the fulfillment of our basic needs is a form of threat to our very
existence. Remove all threats to our survival, self-expression and
happiness and we will live in peace and harmony. Let us be. Who we
really were born as. Do not try to mould us into a pattern for that
will only make us more harmful and not useful to society.
But we also know that man’s desire has no limits and in satisfying his
desire, he harms other humans. The more humans there are, the more
likely obstacles in his path, the more humans are harmed, because more
humans would also be desirous of the same and would challenge him.
Man’s desire can neither be completely extinguished nor satisfied.
Either extreme is dangerous. To extinguish his desire completely would
result in the extinguishing of his desire to live itself, making him
inhuman and lifeless while satisfying desire completely would be
impossible, and if seriously attempted, would cause either war and
strife over natural resources or the depletion of natural resources, or
both. Man’s desire is not to be extinguished or satisfied completely,
but controlled. To be able to control one’s desires is possible only if
one is knowledgeable. It is possible to be knowledgeable only if one is
civilized. It is possible to be civilized only if one’s basic survival
needs are fully met and never under threat. So, if we secure basic
survival needs of all humans, freeing them from the animal pursuit of
food and shelter and instead allowing them a civilized pursuit of
knowledge and education, we would make them all knowledgeable enough to
control their desires and therefore end the wretchedness and strife
that has plagued humanity throughout its existence. Man can control his
desire though knowledge but knowledge cannot come to him without being
civilized, i.e., without transferring him from the animal pursuit of
food and shelter to the civilized pursuit of knowledge and education
through securing his basic survival needs.
What does a human do with his/her life? Enjoy a comfortable life,
pursue one’s work of choice, keep trying to live a better and longer
life and so on. Life is not comfortable always. Hardly does a person
get the work of his choice. But we can keep trying to live a better and
longer life. That is our personal progress. If we extend it to all
humanity, then it is true progress. Shouldn’t we all be working towards
it? – Personal or universal progress, if we are unhappy with either?
Personal progress in the case of personal discontent and universal
progress in the case of universal discontent. Nobody will say that they
are content with the state of the world today. Any moment a catastrophe
could occur, either manmade or natural. Such is the state today.
Gradual progress towards doom is taking place as the environment is
spinning out of control with storms, hurricanes, floods, heat waves,
etc. becoming more common and causing more destruction each year. That
wouldn’t be the case, if human progress was catching up and protecting
us from environmental imbalances. That there is a way out if we seek
out the true and simple reason or cause behind it all is something yet
to enter the consciousness of mankind. That it is easy is my message.
Simply make sure that no child is born if either natural or manmade
environments affecting its survival cannot sustain it. This way that
child will not be underfed/disregarded/disowned/disrespected/ignored/
unemployed/etc in any manner. Even half-hearted efforts in this
direction would be enough to restore the earth and our societies to
balance, because we would be striking at the root cause of it all. It
is not impossible to make the world a better place, though. The root
causes of most problems facing us can be narrowed down to a lack of
resources and an unequal distribution of those resources. This can also
be viewed as overpopulation – too many humans, too few resources. It
seems that we have taken it for granted that the earth will never run
out of a capacity to keep supporting more and more humans without going
out of balance. This can also be viewed as an overconfidence of
humanity in its ability to progress and find better and more efficient
tools and machinery to sustain one and all. But what do we gain by
simply sustaining more and more numbers of humans? Life does not get
improved in any manner. The progress towards better living is
stagnated, as progress will have to be directed towards sustaining
ever-increasing larger numbers of humans rather than improving the lot
of existing humans.
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