The Hindu Business Line : Aspects of relativity

The climate-change issue has set one thinking about the future of life on our planet, on the one hand, and, about life itself and how important are the things we as humans consider to be so, on the other.

Perspective of reality

In fact, it is all about perspective, about reality within a larger reality. The first, and smaller, reality is confronting the problems of life as we go about our daily chores. It begins with extremely immediate issues such as indulging in gossip at the roadside tea-stall, scanning the newspaper headlines over a cup of tea, taking the children to school, preparing to begin a hard day's work in the field, or rushing to catch a train which will take one to his place of work after a couple of hours.

And then there is the day ahead replete with jobs like going though one's yoga routine, commuting to office, focusing on getting through tasks one has set for oneself during the day, and so on. The list is simply endless and, importantly, it differs from person to person depending solely on the circumstances one finds oneself in. Essentially, the entire effort — of which, usually, one is hardly aware — is making both ends meet in a manner of speaking. This, incidentally, may cover the life of a kid from a poor household playing on the pavement, a business tycoon flying around the world in his private jet, a daily wage-labourer toiling in the fields somewhere in the interior of the country, or the President of the republic himself going through his daily chore of playing out the life of the first citizen.

The common thread running through all these different cameos is that, no matter where one is placed, each person is involved in the business of daily living, the consequences of every action taken or contemplated however being dependent on one's social status. But no matter how important or otherwise the person is, the reality with which the interfacing is taking place is immediate, its horizon being solely determined by the position one holds in society (for example, a farmer tilling his soil, or the Prime Minister meeting senior officials on a policy issue).

The temporal canvas

But this reality is actually cocooned within a larger one — which also has a direct impact on life as we experience it although the canvas is infinitely larger than the `personal' one. This reality concerns that of the heavens and everything that makes life click on Earth. The temporal canvas here extends millions and billions of years, which is perhaps why human beings with a life time-span of "a-trillionth-of-a-second" 80 years are not easily made aware of it in the course of their daily lives.

And yet this larger reality is as real and critical to the business of "living" as is the smaller, more easily perceived and "felt," reality. The importance of the just-released report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relates solely to this larger reality where the perspective embraces the cosmos itself. Come to think of it, it is all so transient — this life, its accomplishments and failures, its affections and animosities, even the concepts of birth and death — when one realises that perhaps in a thousand years time the processes leading to the extinction of human life on Earth will have been set in motion irrevocably.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

More Stories on : Lifestyle | View Point

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Dire warming

Testing the Budget-maker's skills

Sena on the march in Maharashtra

Micro-finance homilies at Satyagraha Centenary

Underlining the challenges posed by capital flows

Aspects of relativity

The paperwork curse

Investing pension funds in equity

Water conservation