Mojo is an American company whose stated goal is to help people “reach their highest potential in work, play, and life while staying connected to people and events in the real world.” To that end, the company has developed augmented reality contact lenses that are connected to the internet at all times, and add information to whatever it is you are seeing. If you’re looking at the stars, they will draw lines between them and show you the sign you are looking at. If you’re looking at a person, they will tell you who that person is, etc. It sounds like magic, but I think the mojo of it will soon fade because our problems do not stem from what we know or don’t know, but from how we relate to everything around us.
If we needed knowledge, we could simply, and some day probably will, implant a chip with all the information in our brain, or project it through some electromagnetic force-field. But what would the information give us? Today’s average person knows so much more than highly educated people knew two centuries ago. Has that made us any happier? Has it made our lives more satisfying?
Reaching our highest potential has nothing to do with what we know, and everything to do with why we want to know it. If we want to know something for the right purpose, we will use what we already know far better than we could use all the information in the world, but without the right purpose. And if we needed to know something we did not know, but for the right purpose, we would learn it in an instant.
By “right purpose,” I am referring to the beneficiary of my work. If I work only to benefit myself, in disregard of others, it will invariably be detrimental for both others and for me. However, if I work to benefit others, it will invariably be helpful to everyone, myself included.
The truth is that the world already has abundance of everything. We produce twice as much food as we consume, yet millions of people around the world are hungry. We have technologies that can provide clean water, clean air, safe housing, good healthcare, and good education for every person on the planet, yet billions do not have these basic human needs. Why? It is not only that we don’t care about each other, but that we want to be superior to others, to patronize and oppress others. This is the only way our egos can assert their superiority. This is the root of all suffering, shortage, abuse, and exploitation of man, beast, and mineral in this world.
What we need, therefore, is to teach ourselves to be humane, not make ourselves more educated. When the essence of our lives becomes the connections between us, we connect to the source of life, to its origin. Satisfaction and happiness do not come from knowing, but from belonging. When we feel where we belong, why we are here, and where our lives are going, we will be happy. Information cannot provide that feeling, but only connections among ourselves and with all of nature.
Posted on Facebook