Any fine human undertaking like the pursuit of philosophy, scientific research, or spiritual life will have very few takers and few followers. But, the very humaneness of the human beings is determined by these pursuits and not by just running after the primal needs of food, shelter, clothing, and procreation, that human beings share with the other living beings.
Just as even if only one good fruit is produced by a tree, it shows the possibility of the tree producing good fruits, similarly even if one sublime or spiritual thought has been produced by the human beings, it shows the possibility that they can produce or conceive of such high thoughts, and such pursuits should continue as long as human beings exist.
The obsession with numbers is another manifestation of the obsession with utility. Every thought need not have a practical or utilitarian value. Attaching importance to numbers makes everything in human life bereft of sublimity and love. In the present times, when the pace of technology taking over all analytical human pursuits has reached astronomical levels, we humans need to focus on the essence of being humans, the ability to look beyond the necessary and mundane, towards that which is beyond the existential. Only such a focus can retain the humaneness in the humans, else we would be competing with our own creations, the automatons, and become irrelevant in the process.
We should refrain from being passive members of a crowd of fools. We need to create towering personalities that go beyond the grasp of these foolish crowds. We need to set standards that others follow. We need to bring innovations and improve the thresholds of human satisfaction. Being content with the mundane and the existing, the as is and where is, being stuck up in the status quo is only a sign of a closed and degenerating system.
Sheep move in flocks; the lion walks alone. Sheep blindly follow; the lion rules. We should be lions, not sheep. Flies do not select their seat or food and cause diseases; honeybees are very selective and cause pollination, giving us flowers and fruits. Whether we should follow the flies or the honeybees is a decision we need to urgently make with complete wisdom.
Source – Excerpts from the editorial of Prabuddha Bharata magazine December 2018.