Once upon a time, we flung feces at each other in the rawness of our instincts, a crude display of dominance and survival. Now, in boardrooms adorned with mahogany tables and leather chairs, we fling words like weapons, sharp and cutting, in the name of success.
Hustle culture has become our mantra, another dogma in a sense. We rise before the sun, fueled by caffeine and ambition, chasing success like our ancestors chased prey. But in our pursuit of progress, have we truly evolved? Or have we simply donned a different mask for the same primal dance?
In the guise of strategy, ruthlessness is hailed as ambition. We navigate this jungle of determination, climbing the ladder of success with a smile on our face and a metaphorical knife in our hand. It's the same instinct that drove our ancestors to the top of the food chain, now dressed in a three-piece suit and armed with a PowerPoint presentation. Loincloths for tailored suits, and our caves for corner offices, but deep down, we're still the same creatures driven by primal instincts with the need to survive and thrive in a world that is as unforgiving as it is exhilarating.
“Survival of the slickest” snatched the spotlight from “survival of the fittest”. Six million years, has anything truly changed?
From the ancient echoes of Sanskrit, Sinhala word "මනුස්ස" emerges, intertwined with the prominence of the mind. It depicts the gap between our kind and the beasts that roam the earth. But, this distinction, this notion of superiority, hails from an era long lost in past, from the whispers of the old world’s wisdom.
I envision evolution not merely as a procession of expanding brain cells, but as the blossoming of our spiritual essence. Within the demand for progress, among the towering monuments of steel and glass, lies a quieter revolution—a journey inward. It is here, in the silent depths of our souls, that we unearth the elusive treasure we seek: peace. Inner peace, unbound by the shackles of materialism, unencumbered by the fleeting bonds that inevitably lead us to despair.
It is time, perhaps long overdue, to turn our gaze inward, to embark on a voyage of introspection and retrospection. With our opposable thumbs, not to erect more monuments to our vanity, but to grasp the outstretched hand of a fellow human. To cast aside the masks, we put on each day, the clown faces we paint upon, and reveal ourselves, raw and unembellished, to our fellow travelers on this journey, in the pursuit of something far more profound. For it is in the embrace of our shared humanity that we find solace, that we find meaning, that we find peace.
"It's not the height of our skyscrapers that defines us, but the depth of our souls"