“To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” – Carl Sagan
When I was in High School, we read some studies involving rats – rats in a maze, rats on different diets, rats in overcrowded cages, and so on. Back then, it struck me that just as caged rats turned on each other when there was not enough food, water, or space, eventually humans would do the same. When I was born, the US population was half of what it is today. And world population has nearly tripled since then. According to Thomas Malthus, in the long run, the food supply will not be able to keep pace with population growth.
Buckminster Fuller countered by proposing that greater efficiency could secure the future, even for a much larger population. Still, it seems to me that we can’t let the population grow exponentially unless technology can offer an exponential increase in supply. So far, a substantial portion of the population suffers from a lack of food, water, shelter, clothing, and medicine. The supply curve always seems to be behind the population curve, yet sustainability has been declared a “socialist” idea. I wonder how we will provide for more people in the future if we can’t take care of everyone now.
We all want to feel special, to be accepted, to find our place in a crowded world. And one way we can declare our identity is to divide ourselves into groups. Boys vs girls. Upstairs vs downstairs. Old money vs new. City-slickers vs country folk. Catholic vs Protestant. Suburban vs urban. Immigrant vs native. Producer vs consumer. Black vs white. Jock vs geek. Gay vs straight. Sharks vs Jets. The divisions seem to multiply as the population grows larger. Everyone wants to carve out their own identity, even at the risk of creating identities that further alienate us from one another.
To stand out, many claim to be what they are not or to contribute more than they do. President Obama’s comment, “You didn’t build that,” comes to mind. We all build on what our predecessors accomplished – or find ourselves learning from the mistakes they made. No one starts from scratch. No one is truly self-made. Our achievements are based on what others have done. As Isaac Newton suggested, if we do well it’s because we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.
“There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), even for a “great” inventor. While Bell patented the telephone and Edison patented the electric light bulb, their inventions relied on the contributions of others. They did not “build” the foundations of their most famous inventions. They improved what they could, and others built on their improvements. Just because one has a patent does not mean their work is original. It simply means they managed to get their idea into production first.
We all want to be where everybody knows your name – at least some of the time. I grew up in a small town, and most people knew who I was. While there is a lot to be said for being known, sometimes I craved anonymity. That said, the struggle for identity boils over on a regular basis. Sadly, some establish their identity by harming others. And the more of us there are, the more aberrant behavior takes place. The numbers argue for an increase in horrific crimes as the population increases. As much as some want to return to the good old days, when America was great and government was small, we now have over 130 times the population of the 1780’s. 130 times the troubles, the social problems, the complexity of life. And the number of possible human interactions increases as a factorial, which is like an exponential on steroids. No wonder we’re having trouble figuring out who we are.
I wish it were possible for more of us to live in smaller cities and towns. Yet, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” as the saying goes. We need to find ways to prevent people from cracking under the stress of living in a closely packed cage, competing for scarce resources, and trying to assert their superiority. As it is, many of us compete for attention on social media, not to mention the job market, and some injure or kill others to break out of the powerlessness they feel. If more people in our communities knew us better, that could help. What if we could restructure our working and living arrangements? Or, maybe we could learn to seek something other than money, power, and fame as measures of our worth. Jesus spoke about seeking righteousness. Maybe we should give that a try.
MurrayWorks 