The challenges haunting humanity may not have permanent solutions. How do you halt hatred? How do you eliminate apathy? How do you inoculate against ignorance? Certainly, there are ways to combat these ills. Education springs to mind. Yet, education is an ongoing process. It is not an endpoint.
In the human experience, we learn and then we forget what we have learned. We take steps forward. Then we slide back. We improve. Then we give ground. The nature of progress is rarely linear. Solutions are often fleeting. Once we succeed in overcoming a challenge, we tend to become complacent. This complacency eventually leads to facing the same challenge again.
How can we change this dynamic? While we might be tempted to look for elaborate solutions or to encounter a "secret" that unbinds us from the ebb and flow of personal and social development, what is needed is simple. Call it confidence and a little brains.
There are some things that we are never going to figure out. This is why faith is part of the human equation.
We may develop supercomputers almost beyond imagining. Technology might grow to the point where we build thinking machines the size of countries; it sounds farfetched but may happen this century. However, no matter how far beyond human intelligence the computer, it will never be omniscient enough to conclusively answer the riddle of existence, the what-got-the-ball-rolling question.
Whatever the machine spits out as the answer to, "What created the universe?" the next question we will ask is sure to be, "And what created that?" No matter how advanced we become with the aid of technology, some things are not going to be known, because existence has an element of the unknowable built into it.
Human beings, from diverse cultural backgrounds, innately realize this. The nature of existence, and the question, "What happens when I die?" are likely to be left to the realm of the philosophical and theological. Science and technology are good at giving "how to" answers. However, when science and technology give us the answer to "Why?" we are often confronted with another "Why?" and so on.
Life is uncertain. Because of this, people gravitate to certainty. We want what we cannot have. Many individuals become creatures of habit to the point of being robotic. They become loyal guardians of the status quo. Owing to this, the quality that most often gains respect, admiration and helps lead to change is confidence. Confidence allows us untether ourselves from the mythical leash of security.
When confidence is mixed with a bit of intellect, the results can be remarkable.
What is confidence? It is knowing we will never get to the bottom of humanity's most gnawing questions, yet moving forward anyway. This dynamic approach to life, of doing what can be done rather than lamenting what cannot be done, has irresistible appeal. If this quality is mixed with intelligence -and it need not be anywhere near Einsteinian- the results can be dramatic.
People follow individuals who are possessed of abundant confidence. When those individuals have a little brains, great things can be accomplished. If we blend confidence, brains and an interest in helping mankind, the results are often miraculous.
Most of us possess enough brains that if we adopt a confident, can-do outlook on life, we can achieve wonderful things. We can partake in the ongoing process that is education, helping to battle social ills like hatred, ignorance and apathy.
*Note - In English, the phrase "a little brains" is colloquial. If I say, "All you need to figure that out is a little brains," it means that you need some modicum of intelligence. That is different than saying someone has "little brains" which means they are not intelligent. In any language, colloquialisms can be particularly challenging to non-native speakers.
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