On the 27th of December I completed doubted the purpose of exploration. A really scary thought, since I am naturally curious about things, creative and love to travel. But for about an hour I completely bashed the point of curiosity. I felt like one of those crazed philosophers as I walked through the woods in Bavaria. It was extremely cold out, and wet. Nevertheless I sat on a mossy bench until the icy moisture had soaked through my pants. I thought about Robert Frost and "The Road not Taken." About the choices we have as humans. I thought about the story of Parcival, and the decisions and challenges he faced--and ironically, I was walking through the same woods that he came from.
Somehow I came to the idea that humans have to choose between being curious and being content. Maybe that was a bit harsh. There should probably be a balance. But my point was that curiosity leads to disaster, often. It lead to the deforestation of desert islands, the spread of disease to the pacific. It lead to the creation of industry, of money, of factories with toxic output, slavery and child labor (and NO, I'm not just talking about Asia and Africa... it was happening in Europe and America as well). It lead to the building of levies and dams, holding the natural rives and oceans away from their goals. It lead to the extinction of species, to the pollution of the oceans and streams. It lead to artificial food, to tumors and mad-cow disease. It lead to side-effects written on medicine boxes, to the overdose from hallucinogenic drugs. All because we need to know more. We need to see how far we can go before... before what? Before we kill ourselves off? Are we going to go as far as to relocate to another planet- just because we can?
There is a difference between Renaissance --the rebirth of the desire to learn, to discover, to create-- and the "exploration" we carry out today. Of course it would not have been better to stay in the Dark Ages, with a feudal system, and religious dictators, but we took the Renaissance too far. That's not to say that all technological "breakthroughs" or advances in building and design are for the worse. Of course there are wonderful discoveries that have been made. But the question is, how far do we need to go?
Do we really need to exploit all the resources of the earth and then find another planet to live on? Do we really need robots and machines to do simple tasks for us? Do we really need to replace airport-workers with self-check-in computers? Do we really need to change the genetic structure of our children so that they will have blue eyes?
When is it that we go overboard with this "curiosity"? When man has too much. Back to that old idea of greed.
Somehow we have the tendency to be overcurious, rather than being content with what we have and with what we instinctually know. Once our basic needs are filled, there is (hopefully) some time for creativity, exploration, questions. But our lives should not be this mission to answer a question that we don't even know. It seems that so many people are searching, seeking something; the meaning of life, the idea of God, the reason why we are here on earth, the way we are. We're seeking for an answer. But what is the question, actually? We're running around doing scientific experiments, and kids are doing drugs trying to find some sort of meaning, some answer. But they're blindly searching. Telescopes pointing out into space to see if we can find... something? Mixing chemicals to see if we can create some kind of reaction. But what's the question? Without a question, there cannot be a successful mission. Thus no answer. It's a vicious cycle.
One has to think that the human has a lifespan of approximately 80 years. All those years can be spent on this quest, and then the human dies. Even if the old man has found out the "purpose", what is he going to do with it? He's an old man and destined to die. They say that old men are wise... maybe that's because they've finally come to the realization that we will never "know," or that we already know. There is nothing to search for... it's all already in front of us. And the wise old man is content, but it's taken him his whole life to get there. I'm not a pessimist, I'm just being realistic. We will all die. Period... But do we really want to spend our entire beautiful life in this greedy state of needing to know more, needing to prove what we can do? The ego takes over... Why don't we spend our 80 years at peace with what we know and what we have?
Contentment vs. Curiosity
I'm not going to pretend that it's an easy choice to make. Being and remaining content with life is a practice. But maybe the inner peace is what we need to keep ourselves alive. I wonder how many healthy humans there will be left on the earth in 200 years. I don't really want to know what the world is going to look like. But maybe it won't be so bad, if people choose wisely.
In my 12th grade zoology class, I came to the realization that humans are really strange. We have so many choices. Animals have it so easy. They eat what they're supposed to. Live in the region they are made for. Mate in the spring. Hibernate in the winter.
But humans are naked and vulnerable. They can neither live without building their own shelter, nor without weaving their own clothes. They have the choice of being an omnivore, carnivore, herbivore. They have tools: language, fire, a mind.
But we have no destined "plan" of how and where to live. Of what's expected, what's waiting. That's maybe why we're so lost, why we're constantly searching for a reason. But if we lowered ourselves just a little bit, we could perhaps access a bit of the normality and stability of the animal world. It is impossible to to cut ourselves off from our minds completely. Even the expert buddhist monk, or hermit can't do it completely. But maybe a bit more balance, and less curiosity will lead us to a more peaceful and healthier state.
Sometimes I wonder whether mentally disabled people have it easier. Whether they are more at peace... I think that many of them might be.
I really wonder, sometimes, how humans came to live on the earth. What are we anyway? We don't quite fit in with the rest of nature's plan. We don't do anything to support nature, not the way animals and plants do. Our excrements are toxic, not valuable fertilizers. We don't help to keep the soil fertile the way worms do. We don't hold together the earth's crust like the roots of trees and plants. We just take, take take. And even if we were to live sustainably, we would maybe just be breaking even with nature. We would just level out to the point where we're at least not doing harm.
But this curiosity of ours just leads to the destruction of nature. When the curiosity remains in the realm of imagination it doesn't do much harm. Art, music, stories, poetry, geometry, love are fine. They inhabit an almost intangible realm. But building, technology, science, production, robotics, chemistry, fumes, space travel, etc etc... tip the scale towards destruction.
Is our purpose to destroy the world and our entire race? Are we going to digest the entire earth until there is nothing left for us here, and then go fly to another planet where we can do the same? Are we monsters?
Or are we going to keep sustaining the earth, and our own lives, and communities. Are we going to save what we have and be content with it. To accept what we know. To live by our senses and not by our thoughts. Are we monsters or are we heros, or at least peaceful players in the game of life?
Let's try to be wise, and content with life.
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