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On Needs And Capabilities



It doesn’t happen frequently but recently I had this conversation with one of my former classmates on how every innovation is meant to fulfil a need, how everything we humans do is to make things easier or better for us, how every action of ours has a reason necessitating it.

Like, for example, we ever thought of water conservation because a) our survival was dependent on it and b) there was a slight chance that we might run out of clean water. Why would we ever think of it if there was no threat to us, if we were never going to run out of it?

This need necessitated action to be taken. It set our minds thinking about all the possibilities and how to overcome this problem.

Now, here, it can definitely be counter questioned that if every action has a reason behind it, essentially necessitating it, then why do we strive to explore beyond the boundaries of human reach? 

To say with an example, what was the need to venture space explorations and why did we, the residents of the blue planet, even think of going to the moon?

Nothing goes unanswered my friend. But can we explain this based on what we just discussed above?

Here, as I like to put it, most human actions are obviously centred around our needs and requirements. But not all, some are also to overcome challenges to mankind, to prove it more capable than it appears to be. Really, we do so much to prove ourselves worthy, worthy to live in a better world created by ourselves.

In this case, I think space travel was once a challenge to humanity. Blessed with the ability to think, imagine and wonder, we humans found a way to overcome it. This didn’t only broaden our horizons but proved that mankind is capable of reaching out to things beyond its reach if it tried really hard.

And so to say, we accept the challenges poised before us. Why do we do that? Probably because a) we need something to fiddle with to overcome boredom, b) we want to understand things that do not make sense, yet, and c) to put our ability to think to a better use, to a more productive use.

If I think of it now, humans change the way things work to make it easier for themselves. While animals on the other hand change the way they function, they have adaptive features and what not to make their survival easier.

That’s what sets mankind apart from all other living organisms. We have the ability to think and the potential of making it happen.

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