It's quite ironic, don't you think, for the spontaneity of change to be the new constant of our era? From this paradox, one might conclude that the earth is beyond saving and thus lies helplessly in the insoluble grip of anarchy. For the very foundation of our human society, order, to crumble down to sifting ashes, our generation must have made a despicable mistake. And here lies the huge stigma around unpredictability, that its bad, chaotic and just ultimately disadvantageous. You want to accept unpredictability and harness it as a virtue of nature? Psht, don't be silly.
Well, I disagree and I want to refute this notion. Let's start with an understanding of the nature of unpredictability of our age. We emerged as Homo sapiens 125,000 generations ago. We were hunter gatherers for a whooping 40,000 generations. It's been 500 generations since the agricultural revolution, and ONLY 20 generations since the scientific revolution. The Industrial Revolutions occurred 5 to 7 generations ago and the world-wide web was invented in 1990. Can you see the pattern here? This is telescopic evolution. 'Time and tide waits for no one'. We should amend that to: 'Time, tide and technological progress waits for no one.'
However, the rate of human adaptation has fallen far behind the barrage of technological developments. We are bewildered by unpredictability. It's human evolutionary instinct to immediately correlate unpredictability with fear of the unknown. Despite this, we can't deny that unpredictability is an inherently natural aspect of the world. Our universe was birthed into unpredictability. Immediately after the Big Bang, our universe inflated. It expanded exponentially. Within a second, matter and energy decoupled, neutrons and protons formed and the nuclei of light elements were created. That was one busy second. It serves as a testimony to the change that can encapsulate time.
In light of this revelation, we require versatility and resilience as a species. The relentless onslaught of unpredictability has nulled Darwinism as a means to adapt to the vagaries of the world. Instead, we need to consciously update ourselves in accordance with the unprecedented rate of technological evolution. The Stone Age Man was frightened by unpredictability, while the 21st century man would have to be bold and unflinching.
In 30 years, we will face a world that is diametrically different from the geopolitical and scientific landscape of today. We might see autonomous cars, a seamlessly integrated Hyperloop system, colonization of Mars, and a change in the political polarity of the world. At the same time, we may not see any of these. There is a multitude of possibilities out there. No one expected the internet to thread invisibly through our daily lives today while many expected flying cars to be around by 2014.
Rather than rejecting unpredictability, we should to learn to play its tune to our advantage. We need to condition ourselves to become more dynamic and encourage our indispensable innovations to flourish in the wind of change. Let unpredictability become a buffer against societal stagnation. We require an optimistic mind to shape the future, one unadulterated by pointless fear and insecurity. We will have to brave the future. Let's brave the future.
Based on the prompt: In an age where unpredictability is the new constant, what can you, the younger generation, do now to shape the future? Our World: 2050 Asia-Pacific Writing Competition 2019