Initiate Social Change At Individual Level
As Anne Marie Willis says ‘We design our worlds, while our world act back on us and design us’. The notion that ‘We are shaped by the cultures into which we are born’; If this is a cycle then where does the change come from? The evolution of human life that we talk about, where does that come from? If this is a cycle then which element of this cycle actually is responsible for upgrading it? Because one thing we know for fact that it has been changing.
The environment or nature, no doubt is one responsible factor in the process of upgrading which can be explained how Darwin said it to be the ‘survival of the fittest’. Mutation or a change in the creation made it in the thousands and billions of years of existence of this universe. The design process carried by the nature or environment designed a single cell from nothing and reached a stage to design a human being. This is amazing; the involvement of nature in designing the phenomenon of giving birth to life is extra ordinary. The universe, every aspect of it is as extra ordinary as this one notion where it designs life from nothing.But this is not all, when the universe reached the stage of designing human being; it actually designed something with greater instincts than other creatures. Human beings are the (up till now known) only aware of itself part of the universe. This makes him the creature that plays the most important role in upgrading the design cycle.
If we see the world today, where human serves as design agency, he have played such a tremendous role that as Jason Silva in his Shots Of Awe says human beings have brought more evolution through technology and science in the past hundred years than the evolution of the past billion years. And this is not because human beings are immortal or so big and invincible in physical terms but the reason is simple; an idea or an intuition and then the ability to connect the idea with one another; they started to design, design their lives, environment, ways of living and developed itself wherever and whatever made him curios, lured him or fascinated him or in pursuit for comfort and happiness or in get riddance from pain, fear or death.
Look around yourself what not is an evolution by human being, the electricity, your house, your office, your wearables, your vehicles; our lives are all a design that once never existed and someone once invented it for the first time just because of an idea, intuition that came in mind or the struggle he made for it.
You can observe many changes and improvements by human beings but the nature isn’t that fast in the change process, there comes the greatness of the human nature. The one creature of this design aware of itself and able to deliberately bring the changes of such measures that it is invincible now.
Imagine if a stone-age human would be resurrected to witness the designs that human beings have created, how he would react to them. Name some as gods, other magic, or may die of astonishment. May be not because he wasn’t one like us but because he wouldn’t believe that all this is what creature like him could have done but this all waited to be accomplished after a series of stairs to be climbed and steps to be taken. He was also a step somewhere somehow just like now we are a step to the future generations.
This all begins with an idea or intuition or struggle or a saying which becomes a step or stair to climb; another idea, intuition or saying or struggle. Thus we can say that ideas and memes is that thing, that one notion which might be the base to bring it all, with a conclusion to never underestimate the ideology of a human mind not even if it is a single mind out of the millions and billions minds. That’s why it is said that “Though ideas and memes are not made of nucleic acid but have brought more evolution than the biological evolution could have brought.”
NOW let’s come to the subject that I want to present in this writing which is that ‘Every Human Matters’ in building the design we are living in. The point is that if you find anything wrong with the norms, values, cultures or events around you, you have played your part in inducing it to your surrounding and then it have played the role to induce things in your life.
Generally we know that with the globalization, the social media and effective ways of communications and mediums of awareness every human is having a much more important role than it ever had. Your opinion is now very much likely to be followed, understood, known or seen by more people than ever by the use of different mediums. This means you are much, much more influential today than ever before. Then, a lot of people have power and a lot do not have it. Some ideas have influenced the world and others might have been rotten in spite of their potential to influence the world equally; this is how we think and this is why we sometimes come to the conclusion that there are people with worth more than others and there are people who don’t worth at all. There is when you are wrong.
If you analyze a human being not by the standards of good and bad or the ways of life that he follows but the way a human being’s character is featured. Human character is a product of two things; 1: Natural; how his nature is, being a human and in this regard we know that every human being is different than other human beings as far as its nature is. Yes I am talking about the constitution of a person’s characters in his/her DNA and chromosomes. No two humans can have all the characters of their DNA identical. This suggests that by nature every human being is different than other. 2: Acquired; The other factor in this product is all the learning, experiences a human does from his life, the part of human being which is made up by his society, environment etc. Well even that is unique. No two people could have identical experiences in life, if some events are alike still because of different nature they would have perceived them differently. Thus a human being is not only unique as specie but also as individuals. This concludes that every human carries a unique position in the pool of human beings he is living. May be that is why creativity never stopped in human beings on inventing a flying plane or a light bulb or telephone.
Now if every human being is unique it means he/she is having a unique position that no other human have on this earth. Every human being have to fill the position or seat they are been given. Thus no ideology belonging to an individual is vain or null as it presents a specific position. So when defining culture or society or nation or an ideology of a certain area we say that it is the presentation of the overall majority of the people of that specific area. Or we can articulate that many positions in that society support that certain way of life or living or thinking. Events, crimes, developments or devastations these all are not induced things from high authorities only or some influential majority group but in actual this all starts from a very individual level.
Look around you, see what is happening and then analyze yourself for how you participated in it. The problem here comes that we unknowingly support a lot of such actions in society that we do not want or even dislike about our society. It is not about our direct support or involvement in different events and actions that make us support them but our indirect ideology, statements, gestures & postures and even our careless social behavior that induces many such norms that we hate/like which becomes a cause to either a lot of unwanted stuff or some really great norms of our society. This is a very important point to be understood as it is the main ingredient of this narration.
Every word or idea or opinion that you have is actually supporting a norm or opposing a norm. Let’s explain it with examples: if you think a girl shouldn’t go out at late night, you are in actual supporting the idea that if a girl goes out late night something bad should happen to her as she did something she wasn’t supposed to. If you taunt someone for a bad dress choice you are actually supporting the idea that everyone has the right to talk on people’s dress and choice. Well then if someone do not like your dress then probably you are responsible for their opinions making you uncomfortable. Now if you think someone is selfish for making their own decisions, you probably shouldn’t make your own choices for your own self or you would be bullied for that, since you actually made that up in your society. But this is not all, sometimes comfort is not everything, there can be some really harsh norms that actually support better things like when you do not do your homework your teacher would scold you just to make on-time homework a norm or as many religious people adopt this strategy regarding dress and clothing, of making negative statement on your dress if that is not up to the standard they think is right so that people should give a thought to their dress up comparing it with the religious standards in order to make the statement of what they want in the society. Thus remember anything you do, think of the effects that it might create if generalized, if it is positive go for it and if not, go for something that you would like to introduce to your society. The overall culture can be influenced by extreme groups in the society like more the scientists in a region common people might have relatively more inclination towards science and tech similarly more religious extremists the culture will be overwhelmed with more religious interference in every walk of life. We always need some extremists of every field to keep diversity in the society. We do not need all the good and virtues people to run the society because this is not about being good. It is about supporting what you ARE rather than supporting what you don’t like for yourself even. A society needs some really blunt people, some very jealous, some really curious, some genius, some lazy and not-very-thoughtful people, some religious, some blasphemous, diplomats and every type of people in every field to make a comfort zone to all types of characters in the society. Because one has to remember that imperfection is that one beauty of human kind that has helped him reach the heights. As Islamic ideology suggests that human beings are better than angels for they have Nafs (the part of human beings who owns all the human desires and is attracted towards worldly life).
What type of a person is your president or what type of government do you have, your history, your economical and political situation as well as your opinions about them do influence the culture you are in. Optimism can help support better cultures. Remember that too much devotion to a certain field shouldn’t be supported as a balanced society must have a balanced culture unless you find nothing wrong at all with that ideology in practice. Thoughtful and mediocre approach always makes better statements of culture in the society and a wider comfort zone to more people in the society to build happier societies and happier countries. And if you want to be happy never put labels on yourself, try everything or at least think positively about everything around you. If you dislike something don’t be blunt about it, assess its positivity and negativity and then make your statement with a very general and thoughtful point of view. Understanding people is the gist not to hate them and be happier with them. If you are unable to be so much thoughtful every time about every action of yours, you can try at least with the following steps:
1- Take action for what you find is right.
2-if you can't take action, say it out. Share your ideas and publicize the information of the right way to be adopted. Inspire people and yourself with words.
3- If by any mean even that is not possible for you, think about events and ideas and always be sure about what can make things right in your head and heart.
