Disposable Life – throw away thinking

It’s amazing that at a point in time in human history, when people are supposedly most learned, sophisticated and advanced, life is so expendable.  I say life because most everything in life to day is disposable.  A society has been created whereby things are acquired and disposed with little regard for the nature of their composition nor the damage caused by their disposal.

It is to be remembered that material things are just that.  They are made from material to give comfort or pleasure.  Most have a life span.  Some even become valued for their age in the form of antiques or collectibles.  Others become “priceless”.  But, all had a use or a purpose when they were created – nothing more. 

The comfort and pleasure of material things in today’s world have a short life span – unless owned by some one “special”.  Then they become of value not for their use but because of who their owner happened to be.  In fact, as new things are designed and developed others are created to take their place.  Such is our need and desire for more.

Yet many of the important things in life have become just as disposable.  The minute their use or comfort is past they are expendable.  Building and homes are built for expediency and style not utility and longevity.  Infrastructure is built to depreciate quickly so that more can be built and more profits earned.  Governments are elected because they promise more rather than out of the necessity for good governance and unelected when they can’t deliver.

But the real tragedy is in relationships, communities and societies.  They too have fallen prey to the need for difference, for style and convenience.  They too have become just material elements to provide comfort and pleasure and when the comfort is no longer felt and the pleasure no longer evident they are disposable.  We don’t have to search too far for the examples.

Marriages and relationships are breaking down faster that statistics can be calculated.  Communities are being abandoned at the first indication of economic stress.  Societies all across the world are in tatters as people abandon the old ways to adopt the “new and modern”.  Values are being scrapped at the first opportunity to climb on board the nouveau cultures that continuously shift and change.  It appears that everywhere there is this rush to uniformity and similarity.

People are in such a hurry to have it all, to experience and to do it all there is no time left for life.  Life becomes disposable too!  The question, it appears, is how one can even have a life without all those material things that have become necessities.  Surely without these life is not worth living!  Its must be disposed of!

Perhaps, its time to stop, to stand still and take stock of what life really is, before it is too late.  Maybe its time to reflect on the destructive nature of our living without life.  It is common knowledge that at the rate world’s resources are being used that human life in its entirety is severely threatened.  It is perhaps less than common knowledge, that at the rate that people are being utilized to fulfill the comforts and pleasures of others, that human life for many has already expired.  Many experience the most dire of plights – yet exist.

Life is much more than the existence that so many experience.  It certainly is greater than the creature comforts that materialism can provide.  Life is certainly of more value than most of the mediocre experiences that are offered under the guise of pleasure.

Life is meant to be experienced, to be felt and to be appreciated.  Fun, pleasure and good experiences are certainly all a part of a fulfilled life but not the most critical elements.  These have to be balanced by the feelings of discomfort, compassion of and for others and the awareness of existence.  Life without the meaningful interaction with others is perhaps not life at all.  It is through those interactions that balance is created.  Meaningful interactions necessitate relationships, communities and societies – multiple and varied.

Life is not a singular context.  It is not only the domain of human existence.  It is the realm of all things the tangible and the intangible and the movable and the inert.  It is as diverse as it is separate.  Most of all life is continuous, ever lasting and non extinguishable.  For even if human life fails to exist we know that life will continue.  If we are to believe even the basics of science, life was on earth, around earth and beyond earth before the advent of what we know as human life.

So the big question is why the rush, why the hurry to bypass life for the sake of accumulation and accrual.  It would be much better, if we turned our energies and efforts into conserving for those that come behind so they too can experience life – a life sadly that most have either forgotten or have never known.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.