Time & the Progression of Pressure & Pollution of Mind & Body

I look to the future with bright but weary eyes. Part of me weeps for the coming generations whilst another part rejoices. As the hands of time continue to move us forward, they also move elements of us backward. The progression of time has offered light & darkness, elevation & sinking. We must be vigilant in these days, ever strengthening in polarization, to keep ourselves & particularly our children from the darker, more sinister sands of time.    

There are a five points I want to address in this blog: media, food, technology, drugs & education. I wish to discuss the pros & cons of the advancement of each of these different aspects of society. I will discuss in particular, greater depth the cons as I believe they are more often overlooked next to the more obvious, more marketed pros. My aim is to inform, relate, comfort & caution others in these turbulent times.

When I look back on history, I start to notice a common variable in evolution & advancement. Never, in my opinion, has there been any great achievement, any milestone & any major leap in humanity without some sort of sacrifice, some minor or major set-back that took hold as we climbed another rung of the ladder.

Education

With the expansion of knowledge, with each discovery & scholarly breakthrough, an increase in a pupil’s pressure invariably follows. In the early days, textbooks were thin & homework was either non-existent or extremely limited. Now, look to any school’s hallways & you’ll find students sluggishly walking around with seemingly 50 ton rocks in the backpacks distorting their posture. The weight of these books is parallel & precisely correlates to the increasing pressure on these eager minds of tomorrow. Homework now constitutes much, if not all, of their evenings which places modern academic stress at an exceptionally higher level above that of even most adult careers. And this enormous stress is placed on the minds & bodies of the fragile youth; still growing, developing, & changing. Such pressure placed upon such a quintessential, delicate stage in life can, in many instances, prove devastating to the individual.

A proper balance must exist in our lives between that of work & play, most importantly in our adolescence. I urge all to scrutinize your day & determine if you are subjecting yourself to an unhealthy, possibly unnecessary amount of work-related stress & do what is within your reasonable means to remedy the dire situation. If you are able, attempt to shift the focus of your day from “living to work” to “working to live”. Of course, I’m not advocating the movement to any extreme & am not promoting a life void of any work & contribution to society but simply advising that a life riddled with stress is quite simply not a life at all. And arguably most importantly, please guide your children towards the proper balance & relieve them if they appear to be over-burdening themselves. Do not aide this plague of pressure & throw gas on the fire by incessantly preaching to them about academic prowess. Such rhetoric may lead them to believe grand life misfortunes await them should they fail to be an “A+++” student. Be calm & reasonable in your approach to raising their work ethic. Consistently remind them that their best effort is the most important area to get an ‘A’ in & that happiness is not the result of monetary success. Reserve utilizing extra pressure & scare-tactics to prompt an academic elevation for when the pupil’s attitude shifts to that of indifference or indignation towards schooling as a whole.  

This recommendation in healthy temperance goes for sports & any other extracurricular activities as well.

Technology

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another”

J. Robert Oppenheimer, a.k.a. “The Father of the Atomic Bomb”, describing the reactions to the first artificial nuclear explosion that took place on July 16, 1945.

This area should be the most obvious give-take advancement of them all. Take the greatest component of this massively two-sided coin to be the prime example: weaponry.

I’m going to keep this brief but hopefully not betray urgent boldness in the process & sum this up in one statement:

Earlier people had to approach individuals in order to murder them. Death came at arm’s length or with the skilled shot of an arrow spanning a couple of football fields. Now, a single man can send one weapon of mass destruction, with a size & weight similar to that of a mid-size automobile, overseas to destroy entire cities & vaporize hundreds of thousands of people in but a few moments.

Pollution of Mind & Body

There are three subcategories associated with this heading that I wish to focus on; food, drugs & media.

·         Drugs

o    Pharmaceutical: The advancement of pharmaceutical drugs has both preserved & destroyed life. Prescription medication can cure but can also sicken the mind & body. It almost becomes comical listening to medication commercials broadcasting some miracle pill but ending in a fast-paced dialogue referencing side-effects ranging from mild nausea all the way to vision/hearing loss, internal bleeding, psychological problems, etc. Does the good of a new drug always outweigh the potential bad? I incredibly urge you to research all prescription medication heavily before administering it to yourself or to your children. If research quells your concerns, still proceed with extreme caution. Watch intently for any signs of adverse effects in yourself or your children/loved ones. It is of the UTMOST importance. These modern drugs can do a lot of saving but also a lot of permanent damage so it is imperative that you do not take their use lightly. I believe I fell victim to a prescription drug with everlasting, adverse effects so I simply cannot stress this caution enough.

o   Illicit/Recreational: The issues associated with illicit/recreational substances should be a no-brainer. I’ll begin by identifying the obvious cons associated with alcohol since these should affect the greatest number of readers; the dissolution of proper reason & judgment that is the sub-text under the word “drunk” can lead a fun, relaxing time with friends into a deadly scenario. Drunk-driving kills/permanently injures countless people every day. In this way, the detrimental side of advancing tech & drugs unite & fuel each other. Besides bloodshed, alcohol-induced fogging of good sense & reason can lead to unnecessary, extreme verbal arguments that can greatly hurt interpersonal relationships. Moving on to illicit drugs; with marijuana as possibly the only exception per personal belief, the development of these drugs throughout the ages has, in many ways, become a scar on the face of humanity. They are synonymous with death, crime & psychological depravity. People kill, steal, & even lose their minds in the pursuit & use of illicit drugs.

·         Food

Next time you’re in the grocery store, walk down the chip/snack aisle & start counting the number of brands & types of snacks thrown at the public in today’s world. I’ll bet money that you’ll get only ¼ of the way through the aisle & get tired of counting. The problem with this is the fact that if you find yourself in “general” super-markets (not organic markets), like most of the population, almost all of these countless goodies will prove to be harmful to your weight-control & overall health. Consumers today are constantly subjected to commercials showing tantalizing but secretly unhealthy treats that make your mouth water just looking at the television screen. Fast-food joints riddle the maps offering inexpensive, grease & fat filled meals. In the words of a country star, “Another supper from a sack. A 99 cent heart attack.” Some research has shown that large snack companies even use particular enzymes in their products to allow for fast dissolution in your mouth & stomach, prompting the eater to go back for chip after chip, cookie after cookie. There are rumors about addicting enzymes in fast-food meals to make the eater crave the food. All of these stand as unavoidable, irresistible & cheap catalysts to speed your way towards a ruined health. Each day, they further catapult our nation’s obese statistics. I have incredible sympathy for those born with inefficient metabolisms in times like these.

The way in which we process food is also a hot topic. Cows are injected with growth hormones, anti-biotics & other unnatural substances that don’t die with the animal but go all the way from the farm to your plate. Dirty, unregulated farms can result in people getting sick, or in rare cases, dying from eating a contaminated meal they bought at a trusted restaurant or store. You can bypass much of this risk by purchasing organic products but lower-class parents will have to sell a kidney in order to feed organic food to themselves & their four ravenous children.  

Like drugs, food unites with advancing tech to form another unique con: When video game consoles emerged, so did a major problem in combating childhood obesity. Instead of running around outside & playing athletic games like in the old days, most kids now couple the plague of poor, modern diets with the lack of exercise that exists while beating the next level of Super Mario Brothers. The pursuit of tangible, athletic trophies have been replaced with the desire for electronic achievements & trophies awarded in XBOX & PlayStation video games. This results in a vicious trend of technology feeding (no pun intended) the growing weight problems of our youth.

·         Media

Media is definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can offer education, joyous entertainment & even personal epiphany, development & breakthrough. On the other, darker hand, graphically violent, disturbing content found in film & video games of today can infect the mind & have the potential to emotionally/psychologically scar. Media can serve as effective enlightening or excessive pollution. Violent media simply entertain the majority while inspiring a more misguided, unstable minority to commit acts of violence & chaos. The internet is a pinnacle destination for the exacerbation of sexual perversion via pornographic websites. Some sites exhibit normal sexual activity & thus can be deemed harmless if viewed by the intended, mature eyes. However, other illegal pornographic websites exist to appeal & cater to a dark, sinister, underbelly group of evil people. Such illegal sites entertain, heighten & provoke the sickeningly taboo & criminal sexual deviances of certain individuals.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

Ultimately, I look at progression fondly & with optimism. I do not believe technology is the devil, electrical cords the conduit of evil nor do I feel that the gears of progress should be stopped. I’m not one of those who say to throw out your television & cell phone. I do not believe in censorship & enjoy many a violent, sexy, ‘R’ rated cinematic thriller. I enjoy listening to the hip-hop songs of Eminem & other hard-hitting, controversial, mature musicians. I simply implore that all be careful with what they decide to watch & particularly what you expose young ones to. If you have children, please set parental locks on the television & when watching a movie, please be mindful of the content & act accordingly. Switch off any program with excessive violent, sexual & otherwise mature content not suitable for the younger ones. What a child sees & hears is integral to their makeup. Their minds are extremely delicate. Imagine their minds & emotions like soft, wet clay; ready to be spun & molded by what stimulus they are exposed to. You give them the wrong input & their pottery wheel will spin off the axis & their clay will mold into a crumpled, distorted piece of damaged art. On many occasions, either through successful “sneaking” or simply being alone in the house, I would watch dark, mature movies as a young boy. The subject matter in these films was far beyond my age & my capability to grasp & understand. I couldn’t handle what I was watching but sheer curiosity left me engrossed & captivated by the strange, new material before my eyes. The feeling it gave me, however, was a literally sickening, disturbed, almost confused feeling. 

So please, go forth into this brave, new world with good judgment, reason & appropriate caution. Relish in the positive aspects of our rapidly developing civilization while doing your best to keep yourself & others from the claws of progress' negative aspects.