What makes the humankind to scale greater heights of achievement and continuous progress is knowledge and technology. A continuous stream of new knowledge and technology makes possible a number of human feats considered absolutely unthinkable before their arrival. But any innovation - technological or otherwise - by its very nature is disruptive. That is why the great economist, Joseph Schumpeter called technological innovation as acts of "creative destruction". While creating something new, they destroy something old. In other words, it replaces an old, inefficient or ineffective way of doing things with a better, vastly different one. It is this 'creative destruction' that pushes economies on an upward growth spiral.
But improper deployment of technology or putting them into wrong uses can harm the society. A parallel can be drawn in the infusion of new knowledge as well. Knowledge could become a force for evil if it is put into wrong use or access to it is quite uneven or outright asymmetric. Thus, there is a need to balance the dynamism created by the innovative forces with some kind of stabilizing ones. That could come only in the form of values transmitted from one generation to another.
If these dynamic forces of change are considered as wings, the values of the society can be likened to roots. Roots by nature go deep. And so does values. Values come from the past - distant past. The more wings to take, the greater is the need to have the roots. That is the only way to maintain balance in any society. Every religion in the world propagate such values. Multiple sources for the nuggets of wisdom but essentially they focus on only one set of things: Love, Kindness, Compassion, etc.
Therefore, the need today is to go as far back in time as possible for unearthing such pearls of wisdom if we want the humankind to survive and prosper as far into the future as one could imagine. Here we go to Buddha, The Enlightened Soul to Enlighten Us. To quote:
"Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity".
Let us start projecting these basic values for Renewing the Humanity!
