My first memory of the phrase “Use Me!” is, when as a kid, I saw this cute little dustbin in the corridors of my school, asking me not to throw the wrapper of the chocolate that I had just eaten, on the ground, instead inside the one and only place it should be thrown into.
Indeed the idea of Utilitarianism caught my imagination, which in itself is a fantastic idea to have around oneself, the only catch being, if the very idea is being utilized in a smart way.
Unfortunately, as it has turned out, lot of things from:
Doing Networking to making friends,
Exploiting resources to minting money,
Consumerism to Materialism,
Has led to a state of affairs, where the first thought that comes in all our minds is,
How can we make use of something?
Will I benefit from using it in this way, or I need to find an alternate which can make the utilization more efficient, in turn leading to more profits?
What is that key differentiator/ USP when I go about exploiting the resources?
What this has led to is a complete neglect of the destruction and harm that we are causing to not only this planet but also to the minds of individuals.
Especially the next generation kids, whom we are breeding into robots who would want to run after success the moment they gain some control over their mind and body, the very basis of which is to accumulate as many possessions as possible at any cost.
And then we happily have those table-top conversations about how bad the world is becoming, how difficult it would be for our children to survive and debating about accumulating more and more for the security that we would want to pass on to our next generation.
As it turns out, neither of the table-top conversations nor the accumulation would slow down the tide of destruction,
The only thing which might work, since we still have sometime, is a realization that the very basis of success need not be money; after all:
A mother’s effort and time which she devotes towards bringing up her child, cannot be weighed in terms of money,
So, how about going from a use based thought process towards a need based thought process?
How about slowing down the pace of exploits, giving us time to look at it from a sustainable perspective?
How about giving up a share of profits for a better ecosystem?
How about incorporating other values and parameters as the basis of success with possessions making a very small percentage, as a consequence of what one does and not what one aims to do?
The ball is very much in our court, if we fail to hit the right shot now, doomsday ahead,
But I have full faith in the power of utilitarianism that homo sapiens have got so accustomed to using in their day-to-day life, which would slowly but surely enable all of us to think about the very fundamentals of existence.
Source for the Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/dustbin
Road to Discovery 