I am continuing on in reading Soul Cravings and find his discussions about humans’ drive to achieve somewhat empty. He speaks of us just needing the drive to do something and then we will seek it but alas reality is not as easy as a concept in a book.
in real life we make many more mistakes than our master plan can account for. spend our money on many more things than our budget for our dream project can afford and get distracted for many more minutes than our timeline can absorb.
when we set small goals, we can accomplish them but in my opinion only a minority of the population can set large goals and hit them. only a small group of our billions are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their large goals.
what I find interesting is the human desire to “live in the moment” and not “save up” for the future, I think that is hard wired into us. consider the human life span and the real risks around us, there is no guarantee that I will even finish this sentence.
if we could have some reassurance, however, that we could live for the greater good and make contribution to the universe that would exist on into infinity then we would be perhaps more willing to give our time, energy and resources outwardly and spend less of them on self absorbed pursuits.
once again we know on the scale of a minority we have many people from decades and centuries before us we can thank for amazing lives we have today but what about the little guy. consider the wonderful power of language, I know of know “famous person” behind that wonderful invention yet without it where would we be today. was there just one guy that came up with it and what drove the people to press on and grow what they saw occuring? necessity doesn’t exist without people taking the time to think about their situation and wonder about how it could be different.
exploring the unknown is something I think we do not do enough of. having spent some time in walt disney world recently I can honestly say that the early components of WDW that still remain were the kind of thing that was put their just to make you think and get your imagination excited. sadly too many of the new things are just idolizing the movies and mainstream fiction.
so, do we do anything these days except invent new things to entertain ourselves with? what should we be doing? is our consumer culture with high tech gagdetry taken us to a place where we can no longer expand our knowledge? is there no unknown?
what does a kid today want to be when they grow up? someone who gets a paycheque? how exciting.