The Well Rounded Individual
Letemdangle
Published
07/28/2011
No, not fat and chubby people, but they too, can be well rounded individuals. I'm writing about people with a large knowledge base. They don't need to be especially bright, but they consist of many talents and skills. In other words, they don't just specialize in one subject or restrain themselves to one ideology, they have open minds and are curious about how things fit together, not just physically or mechanically but metaphysically, philosophically and spiritually.
The reason I am writing this is because it is becoming more and more apparent people are specializing. They specialize in political parties. They specialize in occupations. They specialize in music, ideology and their day to day lives. This type of existence compartmentalizes us and instead of being an overseer of our lives, we are just spokes in a wheel. Like a common resource that takes it's part.
Thousands of years ago mankind traveled northwards. From the challenges for survival they learned incredible skills. Yes, war, killing and brutality was a big part of that. Even today we are still learning how to do that more efficiently. There were other more cultured skills they developed such as farming, food preservation, metallurgy, animal husbandry etc. People learned all these basic skills and there are some small pockets of society that still do. In the western world this general type of knowledge has pretty well been eradicated. Lets face it, if the power grid collapsed and roads were cut off, most of us would be dead within a few weeks. That is not something I am worried about, but it makes the point of how vulnerable and weak we all are.
This phenomenon has been the result of the Industrial age. To make efficiencies people had to be specialized and repetitive. After about one hundred years of this people are now more or less, repetitive resources, considered by governments and ruling elites as nothing more than bread gobblers. How else do you explain the shift of industry to labour rich and inhumane countries such as China, Indonesia and India?
Here in North America we love our machines. They do almost everything for us and I have no complaint there. There is however a price to be paid. For when the machines out work us, out think us and from what I have observed, think for us, then we too must become machines in order to compete for a place in the world.
The computer age has definitely changed our lives. It too has progressed mankind with a price. More inactivity both in children and adults, huge increases in physical and mental diseases. Birth defects have been linked to computer oriented occupations such as autism.
There is one age we are also engaged in, that is the Technologically Advanced age. There are experiments being carried out that imitate muscle, cognitive functions, specialized functions within both machine and living entities. Goats with spider genes that can grow extremely strong wool, cows that produce human milk, cloned body parts, etc.
We are at this time living within three ages, all of which have impact on our lives. We are still part of the Industrial age, the Computer age and the Technologically advanced age. Progression is at such a pace that soon many people will be living within four or more ages, with their benefits and disadvantages.
What does this mean for the common man in the future? As far as I can conclude, it will require each of us to further specialize and perhaps even apply mutations to our beings. Gills for people who will do undersea platform installations, camel humps on soldiers who fight in the desert, men and women who breed certain genome specific entities.
We are all resources affected by the world around us, in it's operations of allocation, balance and creation. Where do we fit in, not just as a whole, but more importantly as individuals? Is individualism and the well rounded person the cost that must be paid as we move forward into whatever age the future holds for us?
The reason I am writing this is because it is becoming more and more apparent people are specializing. They specialize in political parties. They specialize in occupations. They specialize in music, ideology and their day to day lives. This type of existence compartmentalizes us and instead of being an overseer of our lives, we are just spokes in a wheel. Like a common resource that takes it's part.
Thousands of years ago mankind traveled northwards. From the challenges for survival they learned incredible skills. Yes, war, killing and brutality was a big part of that. Even today we are still learning how to do that more efficiently. There were other more cultured skills they developed such as farming, food preservation, metallurgy, animal husbandry etc. People learned all these basic skills and there are some small pockets of society that still do. In the western world this general type of knowledge has pretty well been eradicated. Lets face it, if the power grid collapsed and roads were cut off, most of us would be dead within a few weeks. That is not something I am worried about, but it makes the point of how vulnerable and weak we all are.
This phenomenon has been the result of the Industrial age. To make efficiencies people had to be specialized and repetitive. After about one hundred years of this people are now more or less, repetitive resources, considered by governments and ruling elites as nothing more than bread gobblers. How else do you explain the shift of industry to labour rich and inhumane countries such as China, Indonesia and India?
Here in North America we love our machines. They do almost everything for us and I have no complaint there. There is however a price to be paid. For when the machines out work us, out think us and from what I have observed, think for us, then we too must become machines in order to compete for a place in the world.
The computer age has definitely changed our lives. It too has progressed mankind with a price. More inactivity both in children and adults, huge increases in physical and mental diseases. Birth defects have been linked to computer oriented occupations such as autism.
There is one age we are also engaged in, that is the Technologically Advanced age. There are experiments being carried out that imitate muscle, cognitive functions, specialized functions within both machine and living entities. Goats with spider genes that can grow extremely strong wool, cows that produce human milk, cloned body parts, etc.
We are at this time living within three ages, all of which have impact on our lives. We are still part of the Industrial age, the Computer age and the Technologically advanced age. Progression is at such a pace that soon many people will be living within four or more ages, with their benefits and disadvantages.
What does this mean for the common man in the future? As far as I can conclude, it will require each of us to further specialize and perhaps even apply mutations to our beings. Gills for people who will do undersea platform installations, camel humps on soldiers who fight in the desert, men and women who breed certain genome specific entities.
We are all resources affected by the world around us, in it's operations of allocation, balance and creation. Where do we fit in, not just as a whole, but more importantly as individuals? Is individualism and the well rounded person the cost that must be paid as we move forward into whatever age the future holds for us?
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