The history of man has been a rather ironical discourse. Our past sardonically gazes back at us just when we strive to further towards the future. Nuance and Novelty are arts subject to idiosyncrasy. If we observe history, we shall find that eras have been usually named after incredible inventions and discoveries specifically those whose mere conception and initiation was perceived as fallacious publicity. Whenever the seemingly impossible has been presented as reality, new boundaries of scepticism have been defined. There are, thus, striking contrasts between the man of today and the man of old pertaining to this chronological evolution of pragmatism. Let’s glance them simultaneously and rather erratically.
Man ate raw meat and plants. Then someone inadvertently rubbed stones and created fire. Fire became the basis of survival of the Human race. If someone from today’s world went back then and displayed the current mastery over this essential element, he shall be a sorcerer of that time. But, the necessity that was creating fire out of nothing back then, has been a rare talent now giving to the readily available lighters and matchsticks. Man built weapons to hunt animals for clothing and feeding his family. Today, we have poultries and butcher-houses where these activities are carried out methodologically. Weapons have advanced to a level which if displayed to the ancient man, he’d bow down and chant away in reverence for this Godly power we hold. Sadly, weapons saw evolution from killing animals for need, to killing humans for domination, to killing animals for leisure, Etcetera. Hunting has become a sport rather than the mandatory occupation it was. And that too with a plethora of imposed restrictions for now we care about extinction of species. The era of man can also be divided into two halves. The more-superstitious age before the Industrial Revolution and the less-superstitious age after it. There was a time when saying Earth is round was considered an irrational and idiotic statement. We live in an era completely opposite. The world has had a cycle of rediscoveries. A patriotic sub-thought, Aryabhata speculated the ‘circumference’ of Earth before Vasco da Gama travelled to the opposite side of the ‘Flat’ Earth and discovered India. And ironically, that happened before Galileo faced death-penalty for propounding the Earth as round. No point, just trying to have a deeper insight into the weird history of man. Not only different times but different time-zones also affected the activities of man.
Over the course of History, the change of man’s attitude has been marginal. Sometimes it oscillates to and fro depending upon the prevailing principles and age-specific gullibility and fancies of man. When man was not on top of the food chain, he united with others and struggled hard to rise on top. Weirdly, now when we are on top, we are nicer to other species than we are to humans of other castes, religions, races and various other documented disparities. There was a time when having kids for the diligent families was a news to celebrate. The natural infections, diseases and difficulties of wilderness kept a natural check on population. Loss of loved ones urged man to keep advancing in medical technology to prolong life-span and reduce mortality resulting in the era of today. We are now advertising contraceptives and promoting lesser children in family for the world is overcrowded. Man worked hard over millenniums to convert his rough and tiresome lifestyle to a much easier and sedentary one. We constructed houses and furniture and enhanced comfort. Running and Jumping, which was an unforced, regular and round-the-day survival activity, has now become an ‘exercise’ to keep healthy. We have defined ‘aerobic’ hours for cardiovascular workouts and a necessity has transformed into a specific-capability. There was a time everywhere it was aerobic. In today’s time, the poor don’t have money enough to feed themselves and are extremely thin whereas the rich have so much surplus that they spend it to be thin. The NGOs for forest preservation collect donations in paper-currencies, those vouching for fossil fuel deregulation carry out their activities using petroleum powered vehicles. When India finally got freedom from two hundred years of English rule, then the first monologue of declaration of this extremely crucial and wonderful news was made in English (“At the stroke of the Midnight Hour….”). The amazement we receive from the very thought of something uncommon and impossible being true, compels and lures us to conspiracy theories. I mean, it is more awesome to have the ill-sourced and shady facts against Lunar-Landings and Mahatma Gandhi’s character than actually believing the documentations OR the certified eye-witness accounts. Farmers see aliens fly-by just because they want to. A monotonous and calculated life bores everybody and genetically following the pattern, people seek to be unique. In the midst of achieving distinction from others, the wisest of men utter the most idiotic of words and do the stupidest of activities. Sometimes, entire generations fall prey to the grasps of this idiosyncrasy. A man who was yesterday praising India’s advancement in Space-Tech due to Mangalyaan, doesn’t marry his daughter to a guy for being ‘Manglik’. A Christian archaeologist discovers dinosaur fossils and then the Pope gives a statement that they are diversions placed by God since Earth is not more than a few thousand years old. We move and settle around the world to find isolation and then want to connect each other through the internet since we are now too far away; we build virtual technologies for keeping us social and then call the users unsocial; there are so many examples like these. There is no end to finding ironies in a man’s very life, leave it be the lives of different generations combined.
The power of intelligence that distinguishes us from other species has us at a very confused state every now and then. The more we think the better the solutions we get but strangely, after rigorous hard work over a span of time, the ‘better’ cycles back to square one. The greatest victim to this is our Indian Judicial system. There are always some flaws to every law specific to vivid cases and there is always some need of amendment to achieve absolute justice.
Hence, we can say that human history is an idiosyncratic amalgamation of idiosyncrasies. We can keep talking about this on and on and still won’t get it all within one article. This amalgamation of the moods of man forms a compound called Pandemonium Ferrate… which is Complex… Confusing… and Ironical.
Rishabh Dubey 'Kridious' 