Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Creations
Does Twain present dilemma with his dog versus man observation: “If you take a starving dog and make it prosperous, it will not bite you”?
Is reality really a relentless state of Damoclean dissatisfaction and genetic disquietude that impels bitten and biting mankind to create, indeed, to progress?
Is that progress measurable by creations that enable civility (or savagery) and luxuriousness of use, ease and pleasure unfathomed by earlier generations of “ordinary” people (if any such creatures do or did exist)?
By minor example, is valet parking , a creation worthy of the Nobel peace prize?
Is pizza, in all its incarnations, a creation of culinary perfection that has no equal?
Can’t resist an aside: Should the best lover turn into a cheese pizza at two in the morning? No dilemma, just a verity of life?
Do the many contraception creations provide beneficial result for women and men? Further, to whom would you, should you, do you give domain over your own body? Dilemma? Politicians take note?
Did creation of the electric light, much less economical heating and cooling systems, speak volumes to the necessity of a robust, multi-layered system of reliable and affordable energy ranging from wood to coal to oil and gas, hydrogen, nuclear (and beyond) and economically justified renewables but all connected by a functional and survivable grid ideally backed up by decentralized power generation systems? Wherein dilemma? Climate Change hucksters?
Do advances in ground, air and sea travel provide for mobility, utility and speed of people and cargo undreamed of a few generations ago except when systems bog down and supply chains create Damocles-like dread?
Does access to information and ability to quickly communicate present opportunity with Damoclean vulnerability present in content and conduct?
Are advances in health care hindered by access and cost with potential solution, an opt-in, cost effective, single payer system, however basic, still unaddressed? Will the affordability sword fall on sanctity of life issues?
With Newton’s Third Law concerning equal and opposite reactions mirrored by the Law of Karma and its three constituent parts, is there any escaping ensuing anxieties?
What happens when imbalance occurs? Welcome back Damocles?
Do the many creations, the arts and the inventions (and those sure to come), reflect the essence of the human condition—-the ability to create?
So Admiral Farragut-like, “Damn the Dilemmas, full speed ahead”?
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The answers and actions remain yours.