“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin
We are all born with the ability to adapt and learn. The same has been the reason for survival and the advancement of our species. We continue to thrive because we have the faculty of imagination and understanding.
As individuals, we derive our understanding and conduct from what society teaches us. All the knowledge that our species has accumulated over time is bestowed upon us in the form of tradition. This gets transferred by education not in the academic sense as in school, but as learning. The same way as a child learns a language through hearing other people speak. We learn from this social cloud knowledgebase and add to the same during our lifetime.
Every new human being need not discover everything on his own from scratch. He can just understand reality as it is and live accordingly in peace. This is an ideal system. However, when available knowledge is in misalignment with actual reality, we unknowingly subscribe to mistakes committed in the past and start believing them to be correct.
The existential reality has always been the same for each and everyone regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or anything. The truth today is what it was a hundred or thousand years ago. While the existential reality remains the same, the order of the human world is ever-changing. Today’s world was unimaginable a century ago and how the world will be a hundred years down the line is unpredictable.
Most of the ideas and beliefs of the modern world were non-existent before the industrial revolution. Following the industrial revolution, the world has undergone rapid economical, environmental, social, technological, and other changes. These changes have combined to upend simple human life. The speed with which the world is moving gives us deep anxiety.
The world order sees quantum changes every now and then. Amidst these rapid shifts, we are using our adaptability to work our way with the wrong ideas of life and living that have prevailed in the society. This is the wrong use of our ability to adapt.
Human beings have not been studied or understood for all the years that we have been in existence. This has given rise to misconceptions about human nature like selfish, greedy, lazy, and evil, and these traits got classified as human nature. In reality we are just fair, truthful, productive, and benevolent.
We are supposed to understand the reality, acknowledge the coexistence that exists in the word, and live happily. For that purpose, we are programmed to adapt and learn.
This understanding of human coexistence with all other things on this planet needs to be accepted widely. We have come so far and have realized and changed paths where necessary. As a collective lot, we need to find our purpose and make life and living more meaningful. We question our beliefs and keep changing, and have come so far as a species. While being grateful for the good things, we need to correct the wrong ones by evaluating.
Takeaway ~
Current belief:- Change is inevitable, change is constant and we have to adapt whatever the system (society and culture) throws at us.
In popular culture – In one of her Medium articles, Bridget Webber says if we resist change, we’ll experience discomfort because we don’t consent to life’s fluidity. She asks to get comfortable with change, accept it, and practice.
As per the Philosophy of Coexistence: Truth is permanent and does not change. You can know it or not know it. People will be united once they know the same truth. People can be at war in infinite ways with their false or perceived truths. Different sciences listed below and their actual goal can help humankind come to the same single permanent TRUTH:
- Material sciences — How Mankind should use materials judiciously?
- Social sciences — Human beings are neither comparable to wild animals nor can they be referred to as social animals. Humans are sentient and conscious creatures who can understand the existential reality and can align themselves with the same.
- Spiritual sciences — Understanding birth, death, and the purpose of life in between.
