Impermanence of life....

Life sometimes is most cruel. It's impermanence is truly scary but the ultimate truth. On one hand the advances in medical sciences have prolonged life for a select elite few. On the other hand the havenots which outnumber the haves by over thousand fold, do not have access even to basic medicines and hygienic living conditions. These havenots are scattered in all continents, with the highest concentration being in Africa, Asia. This is not to say the havenots are not present in affluent economies in appreciable numbers.

Recently saw a few movies, like Blood Diamond, The Constant Gardener, etc. where the abject poverty of the downtrodden is so very depressing. In India too the picture is not much  better.

The fate of stray animals in India is most pitiful, recently in my compound two of the resident stray dogs died sad brutal deaths, killed by their own siblings. The root cause is overpopulation. This sibling killing is a Malthusian phenomena. Increase in dogs in the apartment complex which may be capable of supporting a certain number of canines who can live optimally off the waste food of 550 flats. Wish we could have sterilised the dogs and curb the indiscriminate multiplication of their tribe.

Earth is bearing twice as many humans today since Mother Earth's resources are finite at any point of time. We are over plundering the dwindling resources. Added to it is the fury of Climate Change which is impacting nature's cycles, crop patterns and output.

Coming back to the Malthusian theory, there are 50 MN people who have become refugees due to war. There is a definite need to curb population growth and eventually stabilise population around five billion. Along with this curb and reduce the retail weapons of mass destruction like cars, airconditioners, etc. The entire market driven consumption oriented get rich bigger faster best orientation must be reversed.

Inspite of the impermanence of life, humans want to gather wealth endlessly and bequeath to their offsprings. Everyone wants to go up the so called social ladder. The ladder is strewn with milestones like cars, houses, bigger cars and houses, endless consumer durables and electronics, status, travel, alcohol, grandeur...... But finally death is the ultimate reality. So basically humans are killing the planet for most transitory and ephemeral pleasures and pride.

Hence urgent Need for yoga, less energy intensive life styles. Life in any case is transient, but let there be a peaceful coexistence on this planet while we are here. Let's not trample on nature to satiate our energy intensive desires. Need to evolve a New Grammar of Living. A bare outline of New Grammar of Living has been presented in this blog. We need to work together to live the New Grammar of Living. 

The LIE bubble getting bigger....

The past decade has seen witnessed a massive financial meltdown in 2008, out of which most of the world is yet to emerge unscathed. The crony capitalism fraud between the Wall Street bankers and investment bankers, the SEC, credit raters, FED, big industry has hurtled US into a long tunnel of recession alike the one Japan entered in early 90s after over thirty years of unprecedented growth and prosperity during which time it become the second richest nation on earth. We see a lot of parallels between both the super rich nations soft landing entering into long term recession.

The other mega industry in US which is also throttling the growth of US is the healthcare industry which at $ 2.7 k bn constitutes about 20% of the GDP. there are scams galore in this segment. There is an unholy alliance between the hospitals, doctors, surgeons, pharma industry, FDA, drug testing, etc. about $ 272 bn is being syphoned off by unscrupulous doctors who write fake prescriptions for addictive drugs which find their way to the black market and sold at multiple prices. Apart from this there is the issue of delays in providing medical assistance.

The CEOs of the above companies still get mega salaries with stratospheric bonuses. This more sickening in the case of the banks which are yet to gain back the pre 2008 health.

There seems to be an unreal sense in the world economy. Everyone is trying bravely to give the impression that all is fine and soon all would be normal, whereas actually the rot does not seem to be improving. It is as if everyone is ensconced in a giant bubble of deceit and lies which instead of being    corrected is permitted to bloat further. Dow Jones at historic highs. Interest rates almost zero. Mega banks being penalised again. But the show goes on with the lie bubble getting bigger and bigger.

Bees disappearing..yet another species bites the dust..

Yet another species is gradually moving towards extinction. Today bees in US have decreased dramatically over past few years. They are crucial in the chain of life in nature as they pollinate and sustain birth and growth of several fruit and nuts. Few days ago there was a report of some species of fish dying and being washed ashore on the beaches of California. They live on some algae which is disappearing due to the increasing acid content in the oceans. This acidity is disturbing the delicate ecological balance in the oceans. Most of these rather disturbing news of endangered spices has been intensifying over the past decade.

Yet humans continue their plundering ways with more energy intensive lifestyles and more cars, SUVs, air conditioning, higher carbon emissions. It's life and business as usual for mankind with scant respect for the fauna and flora. The anthropocene era is certainly the doom and hubris of the human race. Climate change is inexorably becoming more pronounced. Yet humans like frogs in water which is heating are lulled into a sense of complacency. 

Marriage a fading institution...

The latest US Research shows that only one in three millennial mothers below thirty are married. Earlier Research showed that over 50% of mothers in US and UK are single parents. The trends are very clear. Most people in western societies prefer to stay alone. Gradually these trends are also surfacing in advanced emerging large cities like Mumbai. Recently rising proportion of young marriages are breaking down in the first year only,

Same trends are holding in Central Europe, Scandinavia, etc. married couples are reluctant to clearly and honestly enunciate their expectations from each other prior to tying the knot. Hence there is fair amount of disappointment in the early years of wedlock. Most young people are becoming fiercely individualist. They are not willing to adjust a wee bit to to each other's differences in living habits.

In many advanced countries, young people have started keeping pets. And in some more advanced singly youngster keep large electronic toys and sex toys. Even robots of the opposite sex are popular.

In US, there are now 57 MN pet dogs and 46 mn pet cats. Virtually 50% of households have dogs and  40% cats. The pet industry is a multi bn industry. This indicates alienation is at all time high.

People are increasing resorting to digital lives. Siri of iPhone is a companion. The all omnipresent TV     is watching everyone  like in 1984. Surveillance cameras are recording every minute of our lives a la Truman a Show style. The ubiquitous smart phone is a constant companion.

Sexual preferences are changing. It's no longer the tradition choices at work. Myriad
combinations of kinky and experimental are in vogue.

Even fertility is on a sharp decline. All kinds of surrogate and other fertility methods are being practised. Gradually human race is morphing into Kurzweils'Age of Singularity.

The Future is Now

Slowness and Mindfulness 2

Simple and sublime truths or keys to existence are rooted in most mundane daily acts of yesteryear. This morning saw one little girl going to school with her Grandpa. As the came out of their building they both did a surya namaskar (greeting the Sun).

Man is fast moving away fast from his umbilical ties with Mother Earth.

So called progresses in science, technology, aerospace, healthcare, etc are nothing but a double-edged sword: which no doubt gives us all the are best quality of life through longer healthier life, hi tech living, better food. But all this comes at a heavy cost in terms carbon emissions, climate change which is intensifying and compounding each year and at the cost of the balanced Eco system which coexisted for thousands of years. Plus the so called progresses are enjoyed by a elite class of privileged people who have the means.

Today man with his sophisticated weapons of doom and love for live sport wields infinite powers on the animal kingdom. Most of them are perishing and becoming extinct which does not bore well for the balanced future of the planet.

Man wages bitter wars against his fellow less privileged beings for the control of scarce and finite natural resources. The objective is to set up a super race which will become most powerful, richest, fastest, biggest, etc till hubris catches up.

Indeed it's a Faustian dilemma in which man will eventually loose his precious soul and peace. Again the longer lasting benefits of life from slowness and mindfulness are relegated to the background since they not so hip and exciting.

Slowness and Mindfulness - I

Today's world is characterised a frenetic activity all round in search of so called parameters of excellence mainly in the corporate world. The corporate world is fixated upon forever improving their quarterly performance so that the stock market prices are showing continuously higher prices. Corporates after a while have to resort to various forms of  corporate skulduggery to keep up with the competitors. This mad quest for reaching the top by hook or by crook by bringing out the fastest, highest, best products.

But all these advances in technology and innovation have no doubt brought us the best mindblowing products like Apple, Bose, etc. then countries are racing against each other to possess the most deadly defence weapons of mass destruction.

With all this hyper completion,  the youth are gradually getting premature white hair, ulcers, blood pressure, during their thirties. Every ten years the forties become the new thirties and so on. Corporates too are leveraging to much to keep up with their peers.

All this is taking a heavy toll on the health of the corporates and the young employees.

Plus all this is also leading to huge debts by economies, corporates and individuals.

As Alice would say everything is getting curriousser and curriouser.

This all has been having irreversible changes of climate and Mother Earth. This meaningless race is hurtling us all to the Edge.

If only some sense prevails. There needs to be a drastic reversal in man's conditioned goals. There is an urgent need to embrace slowness and mindfulness as a conscious strategy to save human civilisation from a certain annihilation through accelerating climate change. It's now or never. More of the solution in the coming blogs.

Internet and Humarobs....

Cisco has projected that by 2018 internet traffic will reach 1.6 trillion GBs, a 13 fold increase in ten years. 79% of this traffic will be video. No of average devices per person will increase from 1.7 to 2.7. About 52% of humanity ie 4 bn will be on the web. During 2013-18, these will a 3x increase in usage. Tablets and smartphones will register highest increase from 5.7% to 30.3%.

Humankind will undergo profound changes in this short futueshockean telescoping of time period. Indeed an inflexion point in human history. Little toddlers have become adept at handing smart devices. Increasingly applications in the cloud will take most our decisions and there will be a radical shift in the working patterns with many job redundancies.

Most of humanity will be glued to touch screens all the time both for work and pleasure. Increasing reliance on computers. Only a few creative functions may be done by those elite intelligent giants. Robots will be taking over a preponderance of repetitive human activity with orders from the cloud.

Indeed the dehumanisation of the human race will be fairly complete. Both humans and robots will start becoming closer to each other. Finally in the age of singularity there will be a morphing of the two.