Anupam- The Dreamer

As a civilization progresses, the amount of manual labour that a person has to do, declines sharply. With the rapid pace of technological advancement in the current era, the manual labour has reduced drastically vis-à-vis the earlier era of pre-industrialization. As compared to the earlier times, now you don’t have to fetch your own water from the wells or far-away places, because you have tap water in your homes. You don’t have to wash clothes manually, as you have washing machines. You don’t need to walk to the nearby vegetable or groceries market, as you can order online through blinkit/instamart. You don’t have to walk up the stairs of your home or office building, as you have lifts. You don’t have to carry heavy weights, as you have people to do for you. You don’t have to clean your home, because again you have maids to do that.

Basically, you name any activity and modern technological advancement has made a machine/automation for that too. What is more glaring, is that some people even don’t want to brush their teeth with a manual brush to save energy, rather they prefer to use electric brush which works automatically. We have become so dependent on the modern gadgets, machines and technology that we don’t want to put any kind of strain on our delicate bodies. As a society, we have shifted from doing manual labour to doing more of intellectual labour.

This behavioural change, per se, is not bad, as we free up more time from mundane manual labour activities and can give more time to intellectually driven pursuits for human progress. But, the hidden cost for such a drastic shift has taken a huge toll on our physical and mental health! A few decades ago, in our grandparents’ generation, there was still some level of manual tasks performed by them. Due to this, they were physically fit. They didn’t need to go any gym separately, or go for a walk, or any other “special” exercise, because their normal routine made them achieve the magic goal of “10,000 steps per day” without making out any extra time for this.

But, now this basic essential necessity of physical use of human body, has declined to a large extent. People who stay at home, are becoming obese due to sedentary lifestyle, because they virtually don’t step out of their homes or even if they go, they don’t walk as they have cars. People who go to office, have to sit in front of a computer screen, for about 8-12 hours a day, and they also don’t move or go out in the sun. Barring the people who do manual labour like sweepers, peons, rickshaw pullers, construction workers, street vendors etc., majority love to “rest”! And this has taken a toll on the physical health. Now, we face all sorts of “lifestyle diseases”, which were a few generations ago unheard of-diabetes, high BP, stress, body ache, stiffness etc. etc.

The human body, as designed by nature, remains fit when we work our every damn muscle. We have forgotten the basic principle of nature -“If you don’t use it, you will lose it”. We have stopped doing manual labour or try to keep it to the minimum, so we don’t work our muscles. Then, we complain that I am not well, my destiny is bad that I catch illness easily, my immunity is poor, my bla bla part is aching….The humans who do a lot of manual labour like construction workers don’t have such basic diseases. Even athletes, who train for long hours, have sturdy body muscles and fitness. And this physical fitness to a large extent impacts the mental fitness as well. People who are docile, inactive and lazy, who don’t move out often, complain of mental issues as well. It’s simple- no physical movement leads to imbalance in the vital body parameters and hormones, which also impacts mental health. And poor mental health in turn leads to low physical movement. It is a vicious cycle, you see.

So, when you are in doubt, go to the nature for solutions! The nature has solutions for many things, because afterall we don’t have separate existence bereft of the nature and natural surroundings. So, go out in the open areas, fields, gardens etc, and “move your body”! And if your job/profession/occupation allows that in ample quantity, nothing like that. Otherwise, you would have to “take out time” to connect with your basic nature, inside and outside. Anyhow, the basic thing is activity of any sort.

In this era of Artificial Intelligence, if we lose connect with the nature and come to rely only on the intellectual labour, then slowly we would lose both- first our physical and mental health, then our ability to do more intellectual labour. I think, we have enough alarms around us to warn about this dreaded future. I hope we don’t hit a snooze button on these alarms and go to sleep again in oblivion.

Till next time…