Running

I

t seems more and more today that our society as a whole, our species, has lost its need to run.  At first humans ran from something. They ran from predators mainly but more metaphorically they ran from anything which could kill them, starvation, cold, illness.  Later as technology progressed it gave humans something to run toward. Instead of running from predators now humans could turn the tables and hunt the hunter. Instead of running from starvation humans could stockpile smoked or cured meats. Even once these needs were met, technology allowed humans to run toward its own progress, feeding into itself and allowing humans to want for better and better and run toward that goal. Technology gave humans the concept of achievement and therefore even later in evolution it provided drive and competition which helped forward society by leaps and bounds. This drive now peaked seems to be faltering and technology seems to be moving in favor of ‘not doing’. At first technology sped up production to support growing masses, now it does the jobs of a great number of previously skilled people. This trend seems to invade our very way of living. We no longer need fear starvation or predators (at least not to the extent previously) and it seems we no longer feel the need to push ourselves alongside technology, favoring instead to allow technology to act on our behalf. Often when attempting to remember something or do some difficult (or sometimes even trivial) mathematical equation the internet is reached for instead of our own cognition. While convenient as it may be it leads to the question of trends. Technology has trended human kind away from what some would call barbarism and again in the pursuit of better, greater technology. It seems now, however, that humans en mass are beginning to settle, to become accustomed to the methods of technology and its uses in their everyday lives. Many people seem to lack the drive and curiosity needed to forward technology again and with that lack it seems technologic advancement has begun to suffer. On a personal note I see this in many people around me, not only in my classmates at college but also in the field. Not that any of these individuals are untalented in the least (in fact it seems to me that those with the most ability and promise fall the most under this observation) The mentality of ‘I have/will have a job’, ‘I get paid/will get paid well enough’, ‘I do work when I have to’, or worst of all ‘I have done enough’, the only things that seem to be on the minds of the modern human aside from the top feed of reddit for that day (not that anyone would recall yesterday’s top reddit line without instinctively referring to reddit). It seems humans ran from, ran to and now have no where left to run, and in such have become content and will settle for what is known and understood.