Folly

It's amazing (and saddening) how our attention can sometimes be caught and held by the strange, the odd, the unusual, the vain and the vacuous, but readily shuns away the natural, the logical, the normal, the truthful and the virtuous. Our interest is roused by gossip and fiction but it is piqued by logic and fact. We dismiss the arcane and readily embrace the inane.

Technology was meant to make life easier and work lighter. That was, practically, what Prometheus wanted when he stole fire from the gods and gave it to men. In ancient Greece, technology was employed in farming and industry so that there would be more time spent in philosophy and in other activities that required the use of the creative and logical mind. They knew that the biological is second only and even is subservient to the philosophical, and that the purpose of sensory perception is not just pleasure but, ultimately, understanding and enlightenment. Let the average modern person choose between watching a movie and reading a book of the same story and he will readily choose to watch a movie.

At this age, man has been greatly reduced to shallowness and superficiality disguised in the seemingly labyrinthine and complex world of technology. Technology is not evil. But humans have greatly misplaced it in the heirarchy of what is true and pure. Civilization, as we describe it, has advanced - or has it? What is the single most profound philosophy of our age? Is there? If we truly have advanced, there should be more people engaged in the quest of further unlocking truths and realities of the world and existence. Or is everyone busy trying to beat each other in the development of the next generation of supercomputers, of which more than half of the world would not even see, much less understand?

There is a reason why humans, of all creation, have been granted lordship and domain over the world. It is because we are able to think. We are capable of logical and coherent thought. When was the last time that we truly used that? No matter how profound and precious a gift is, if unused, its essence diminishes. Or are we expecting enlightenment to jump right at us from our computer screens?