Sparks
Sparks is my Sunday collection of quick, unpolished musings; the kind that flash across my mind when I am walking, waiting, or watching the world sideways. They’re not essays, not manifestos, just brief jolts meant to question, amuse, or unsettle; tiny reminders to screw the norms in the everyday.
I came across something recently that tickled my curiosity. Back when we were cavemen — hairy, hungry, and generally not much fun to be around — we lived to the ripe old age of about 30. Then, for the next ten thousand years, we managed to stretch that only slightly, to 35 or so. Ten thousand years! Whole civilizations rose and fell, pyramids were built, empires expanded, and yet the average person still keeled over before they had a chance to grow a seriously decent beard.
And then, quite suddenly, things shifted. Fast forward just a couple of centuries at most and we’ve tacked on another forty or fifty years to our lives. That’s not an incremental gain; that’s practically doubling the lease. And why? Not because we suddenly discovered yoga or ate more organic apples. It was science. The science of food, shelter, medicine, transport, sanitation, clothing, even war. It is the unglamorous, practical tinkering that will keep us alive long enough to possibly one day be bored by it all.
Here’s the funny part: for ten thousand years, we had clean air, unpolluted water, organic food straight from the soil. And still, we died young. Now, the more chemicals, contraptions, and cleverness we add, the longer we live. Which does make you wonder: why do we yearn for the old ways that barely made a dent, while grumbling about the sciences that have doubled our time on Earth?
Raman
Screw The Norms