PROGRESS

“We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” – C S Lewis

Progress is a connotation that means different things to different people. It can be as personal as our self-centredness or as global as wider concerns. It can be conditioned by immediate needs or liberated by a desire to leave a legacy. It can be seen as a corollary to development of technology or the advancement of humanity. It can be about a better present or about a better future.

Once while educating students on the need to re-look our tendency to abuse water as a resource, I stressed that drinking water was going to get scarce, due to indiscriminate development. A bright boy asked, “With technological developments, one day it will be possible to treat sea water and convert into drinking water”. The point he was making was that it was always possible to find new solutions to the problems created by certain aspects of development.

After appreciating the lad for the intelligent intervention, I communicated thus: The Jaipur foot is an important technological development for those who lose their limbs. But would it be correct to amputate our healthy limbs just because we have a remedy? We cannot BE BETTER by scouting solutions for problems we insist on creating.

Embracing fundamentals based on a vision of equity, justice and self-reliance, for the entire humankind, should always be the priority. Progress cannot be walking the path to the future whilst destroying the present. And most importantly, as Lewis says, it is about having the courage to leave the wrong road and walk only the one which benefits all the people and the environment around, not just of today, but of tomorrow as well.

When technology exceeds our humanity, it is surely regressive…
to BE BETTER is to let our shared advance to be truly progressive

progressive regards
Pravin-da