Have you recently heard the phrase - 'Man is living his life fastly'?
Life span is defined as the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age, whereas a lifetime is defined as the period during which something is functional (as between birth and death). Lifetime is a functional derivative of the number of situations came across by a man. In short, it is the experiences gathered by him during a particular interval of time. When we consider our past generations, they took some days to communicate with their distant friends and some months to travel from one geographic location to another. But, people of our generation do all these activities in a matter of seconds. Man of this decade acquires the same amount of experience, for which our ancestors have taken few lifetimes.
Life span is defined as the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age, whereas a lifetime is defined as the period during which something is functional (as between birth and death). Lifetime is a functional derivative of the number of situations came across by a man. In short, it is the experiences gathered by him during a particular interval of time. When we consider our past generations, they took some days to communicate with their distant friends and some months to travel from one geographic location to another. But, people of our generation do all these activities in a matter of seconds. Man of this decade acquires the same amount of experience, for which our ancestors have taken few lifetimes.
As the old adage goes, 'Change is the only thing which doesn't change'.
But, man of our contemporary world has learnt to use that 'Change' as his vehicle to travel from one situation to another. Hence, he becomes an integral part of the change which governs the lifetime in our planet. Because of such drastic changes in the human lifestyle, impermanence becomes the core concept of our lives.
Proverb says that, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. But in our century, almost all the inventions are driven by 'Impermanence'. Impermanence has taken control over the Necessity. We can see the reflection of impermanence everywhere. Impermanence is the most omnipresent thing in this world next to God (at least we have evidence for the existence of Impermanence :P). For example, our tendency to use the ink-filled Fountain pens has been overridden by the use-and-throw ball-point pens. Everything right from the electronic gadgets to human relationships to human organs have become a replaceable item.
What are the impacts of such changes? A business model which has quality and permanence as its core idea becomes an invalid entity in this world. People opt for things which suffice themselves with temporary satisfaction. The concept of long-term becomes an extinct vision.
What we need to do about this? Nothing. Just have the awareness that the situations we are facing is a by-product of this Impermanence. It will avoid confusion, lessen the mental stress, give a clear insight about our life.
So, when some elder people criticize us for being running with all our legs, don't conclude that they are alien entities of anachronism. It is us who are the real entities of anachronism!
It is time for us to coin the adage of our times - 'Impermanence is the only permanent entity'.
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