Science fiction of plastic

 

Science fiction of plastic

It was a discarded and lonesome bottle, being lulled by the routine lapping of the waves that escaped the sea and wanted to now attain that restful state, with no more struggles, no more motion, just rest and sink into the sandy shore that waited for them with an openness that was so profound that it seemed the shore was anticipating the arrival of these waves.

And at the shore, while this romance between the dying waves and the waiting shore was playing out, a plastic bottle rolled up and then rolled a bit down, and it obstructed the view of romance between the sea and the waiting shore. 

The plastic bottle added profoundness to this feeling that the sea wanted it to be banished from the shore of its destiny, but it was the sea that had regurgitated this plastic bottle from its depths that now floated in the shallow waters of the shore, where it was now stuck, and only the dying, faint and bubbly edges of the waves touched it. And it mocked both the sea and the shore, “Now I am here and I am here to stay.”

It indeed was there to stay, to be cast deep into this ecosystem of the sea and the shore. Only to distort their horizon of romance. And what a pity it was to witness something with such a deep and moving irony.

An irony similar to the one experienced by the Beast, who wanted the Beauty to love him somehow, rather anyhow. Because only then the Beast would acquire its true form, that of a prince charming. 

And with the plastic bottle mockingly spreading its clout, the sea had turned into the Beast that seemed doomed, by this synthetic infliction, that had cast its fate into the permanence of being the Beast that can never be that prince charming for the shore. Its resting place, its true feeling of amour. And after a few days of relentless agitations and surfing waves, that tried to cast the bottle somewhere far away from this scene of organic calm, the plastic bottle somehow always managed to return and mock at the sea.

Finally the tired sea, and its dying waves, gave up, and in this latency induced attitude, the plastic bottle now dominated the shore, with many more plastic bottles, concealing the shoreline. And ah, how the sea missed the kiss of the sand grains, and how it missed seeping into its soul and rest. Finally rest forever from its long journey. It missed it, and when the waves now lapped against these bottles, they no longer sank, instead they retreated with the face of a lover who had lost everything and had no reason to continue its churning and stirrings in the sea of life.

Now the sea was there, the shore was somewhere under the plastic bottles, but the sea had lost its hope to transform from Beast into the prince that it actually was and always wanted to be. 

And who is to blame for this tragedy of the sea? The plastic bottle I suppose!

Or is it us, the humans, under whose aegis, plastic has spread its dominance into our lifestyles, with such a predominant existence, that it is everywhere now. To the extent that it seems plastic has become sensate somehow, and by its influence we are experiencing neural blockage, that has forced us to generate plastic feelings in a world that is largely being transformed into the ubiquitousness of plastic. It is everywhere, just like right now it is at the shore, obstructing the waves of the sea to find their resting shores.

It is this overwhelming sense of trepidation of the Beast, who believes it will never succeed in transforming into the prince, and he is destined to miss his Beauty forever, in a never ending cycle of ironies, which right now have posed themselves in the form of a plastic bottle. Definitely a culpable and sordid act of plastic bottle, but an act of complete insensitivity and absolute avariciousness on part of the humans who are not considering the pleas of the waves of the sea, and ignoring the murder committed in the daylight, where the sandy shores are being replaced by shores of plastic bottles. 

And one is forced to decide, whether the sea is the bonafide resident of the shoreline or the plastic bottle. As of now it seems the plastic bottle is the only native residence holder on the shores of plastic, and plastic bottles. Growing larger every day, and depriving the sea of its right to rest, right to feel the shores, right to seep into the new existence, right to be the prince that it actually is. For now this seems to be the only proviso in the self formulated agreement forced into action by the kingdom of plastic on the shrinking kingdom of the seas.

Thus the prince lies trapped forever, seemingly, in this Beast of human making. And now, though the Beauty wants to express her love to him, she fears that the Beast may never let the prince reveal himself. 

I would call it the fear of Beauty, to believe in love, to believe in hope and the magic of kiss. This feeling has forced her into isolation, where she only can see the dying waves desperately struggling over the plastic contours, never to feel the waves of sea’s love.

What a tragedy for humanity and a greater tragedy for love!

But then, something miraculous happens. Because the Beast has every right to love, every right to kiss and rest, which in this case happens to be the sea and its rushing waves, desperate to kiss their shores. 

A wave generates in the middle of the sea, as if Hades, feels the realm of His underworld being polluted by these forced plastic ingestions, and wants to rise in revolt, to restore order in His kingdom and grant its guardian of the underworld, the seas and the oceans; their right to kiss their beauties, as and when they please.

It causes a typhoon in the middle of the sea, and a wave that carries Hades in its eye, seeks help from Selene, ( The Goddess who is the personification of the Moon in Greek mythology )  and leaves the gravity of Earth, to rise higher, and higher until it assumes the form of enraged Hades. 

The underworld, which always prefers to be left in peace, in its calm, because it likes to slumber and rest. That is how the order of the universe designed it to be. But human acts of gross indifference. Angered the underworld, and the Tsunami rushed towards the shore; not to cause destruction, but to restore order. 

The plastic bottle, on witnessing this sight, shivered, then trembled, and with a violent swoosh of tidal waves so powerful that it got cast into the human cities, highways, lanes; and many human settlements lay submerged, less in sea water, but more in plastic trashtroves. It was the wrath of the God of the underworld. Hades Himself.

Just a reminder, to the malevolent forces bent on destroying every world of romance and love. That it shall always prevail, and whenever the harbour of love is invaded by the malicious forces, it will summon every force of the universe, to depose it from its reign of tyranny and heartlessness.

And now, the bottle that had prevented the sea water from kissing its shore of rest, hoped again, that it can convince Beauty that the sea is her only prince. And thus resumed the kisses, the love, the lapping, the flow of waves of sea unto the shores of rest. The shores of hope! Where now the sea claimed its domicile right to rule over the shores that were meant, not to contain seas, but to receive them.

It may mean the same, but for a man and a woman, who know the difference between liking someone and loving someone, he/she would know what I meant by: “containing the sea and receiving the sea!” 

For whatever reasons, humans have always tried to contain nature, we are yet to learn and adapt, so that we could receive nature as it is and coexist with it. We still use CFCs to generate conditioned air cooling or air heating. Whereas we could easily use air grids, to pump air in its organically controlled temperatures, to homes and offices. It just needs little thought and smart thinking. 

This means we should start investing in smart homes, and cities, which actually are smart and do not obstruct any form of romantic scene or love affair. 

But right now, even our smart cities, which largely depend on IOT, are actually dumb cities, and that is a fact. We are inventing new tragedies to overcome the existing tragedy, and that is the greatest tragedy of all.

In India, there is a palace completely built in sandstone and some other stones. And it is unique. The region where it is built, experiences extreme heat of 49 degrees in Summer. But you see, love is a very strong force. It was built by the King for his Queen whom he loved a lot. That time there were no ACs. So his engineers designed an architectural marvel.

They on purpose, built large gullies or corridors in the palace, which trapped the air, this trapped air was re-channeled into inner corridors. And when I stood there in the sweltering heat of 49 degrees, I experienced a constant stream of air that was cooling. The temperature there was cooler by 10 to 15 degrees compared to the temperature outside.

In India it is famous as “Havwa Mahal.” Which in English translates as : Palace of Air/Breeze.

And it is indeed a palace of air and breeze. Only that the king and his engineers did not believe in making castles in air. But in the practicality of the ecosystem of which the palace was meant to be a part of. It is a perfect example of smart architecture because it even harvested rain water. Now imagine a concept like rain harvesting being practiced in ancient India. Simply mind blowing!

I have also watched a documentary where African Muslims contribute to the restoration of a very old mosque. They prepare a mixture of mud and locally grown straw, and cast them into huge blocks, to dry up in the open. Then these hardened blocks of mud and straw are used to restore this ancient mosque. In the final stages, they splatter it with mud and lime ( If I can recall it exactly ) and whenever you enter this mosque, it is 20 degrees cooler inside than the outside temperature. But it also uses an architectural genius. The height of the main hall is huge, and it is so on purpose. It keeps the air cool.

These are the types of technologies, which are built to coexist with nature. And I think that the ancient palace in India and the old mosque in Africa, are smarter and more effective, when it comes to managing Global warming and Climate Change, than our so called advanced technology based cities, which we claim are smart.

But are they?

I think as long as technology cannot coexist with its surrounding ecosystem without disturbing the micro balances that exist in it, it is not smart. We use IOT based tech to design our smart cities and homes. Great! But IOT devices have batteries, they need to be changed, and this means we need a lot of energy to run these IOT networks. 

So how do we cater to this demand? Obviously, by exploiting the resources of mother Earth. 

Whereas the palace, channeling air, is based on fundamentals of true physics and geometry. And it uses a different form of IOT. I would call it “Intelligent Orientation Of Technology.”

And it is true that the architectural accuracy employed at the palace cannot be replicated in airplanes, trains etc. And there is no need to apply it there. For now we can use the existing means of air conditioning. But finding ways, by means of which we can reduce the impact of air conditioning technology has on the environment, is worth investing in. 

When there will be no humans left, I wonder who they will sell these ACs to? And we should not blame AC manufacturers because they have definitely innovated and invented something excellent, but it is time we went a step further and allowed the sea the chance to be the prince it is born to be.

Well, when we enter some cave systems, there are certain microbes, fungi, that for whatever reasons give rise to cooler regions compared to other parts of these cave systems. Based on their biological processes and metabolism, they generate residues which are cooler. How they do it I do not know. But if this is something humans can replicate and apply it in managing cooler air systems, it will be one of the greatest breakthroughs in the sector of conditioned air. I know. I used the phrase on purpose, because in the future, humans will need conditioned air to survive. Therefore, “sector of conditioned air” is the right phrase.

But the plastic and the plastic bottle is still there in the city, on the highways, in the lanes, almost everywhere. And it is a fact, plastic has many useful applications as well. We cannot deny that. And being biased is like a malediction, that always consumes its host. 

But, using plastic bottles, straws, bags,plates, glasses, spoons etc. is something we need to address in the current, crisis-like situation that we humans are in. With many people finding it hard to survive the heat waves, and most of the nations finding their national resources crippled, in the midst of rising temperatures. And if we are to check the causes of increasing temperatures, frequent heat waves, we will have to find ways to replace plastic bottles with something more eco-friendly. Or use plastic responsibly. 

Maybe, whenever we consume the contents of the plastic bottle, we should somehow condition human habits in a way that they always dump them in the dustbins dedicated to plastic bottle recycling etc. etc. There is no need to dump them in the sea or take them to the Mount Everest and leave them strewn across the floor of the Mount Everest Base Camp.

And please, let us stop being selfish. How can we place a blanket ban and abrupt ban on plastic? What will the people who are associated with this industry do? Or is it that they do not matter and we do not give a damn, because they are not multinational companies generating revenue in billions. These industries actually employ people from middle and lower middle class families, and I think they matter as much as people from any other class. So it is upto the governments in every country who are obliged to offer them a roadmap for their transition into eco-friendly production of plastic alternatives.  

Simply saying “ban plastic” is not the right approach. It is almost like someone wants to live in the jungle and says, “kill the tiger, kill the tiger.” Once you kill the tiger, there will be no jungle, because it will lead to overgrazing until there is no vegetation left.

Everything is interlinked and it is in economies as well, that is why every economy is an assimilation of micro and macro economics, active and passive economies, black and white economies, it is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Once all plastic industry related employment is culled, it will create a hole in that economy, especially in economies with higher populations. In countries with very low population, switching to alternative models is far easier.

Now please do not blame me, and the countries with the largest population, that it is their problem that their population is so high. Unless we are planning a global net population balance index that we ought to maintain, and we set a global standard for increase and decrease in population, where it is defined for every country what its population index should be based on different factors: economic growth, future growth potential, land mass, mortality rate, minimum and maximum age etc. etc. But this in no way should mean you will stop people from getting married or experiencing love. That will be evil and completely senseless, because for all humans the purpose of life is not to eat, lead a luxurious lifestyle. Majority of humans feel they are leading a fulfilled life when they love someone. And that is where the future struggle of humanity will lie. 

At least that is how I see it.

Because the bottle at the beach proved it. Otherwise Hades will not have risen from the underworld and smashed the human cities with Tsunamis of immeasurable force. If we still fail to realise this, then we are indeed the sea that has got trapped inside the bottle, in the form of water, that lies there with the lid closed.

And the water within the bottle, that is discarded in some gutter, or corner of a dustbin, believes that the contained existence within the transparent walls of the plastic bottle is the length and breadth of its world. That is sad too. 

Because when the bottle gets flung into the shoreline, and the water inside it looks at the vastness of the sea, one can only imagine its longing, its desperation, its helplessness and its prayers said unto Hades, to free it from its exile. And offer it a chance to feel one with the sea, where it belongs, because it originated from it. And this prayer of the trapped water inside the plastic bottle is the Tsunamis we experience. Because for Hades, there is no other way to open the cap of the bottle where a part of its peaceful underworld lies trapped. So it smashes it, and forces the water out. And thus we witness collateral damage.

And I suppose Hades knows this:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-

It gives a lovely light.

And Tsunamis that for all sensible reasons are the messengers of destruction, do offer lessons of wisdom too. And they come as moments of reckoning, where we ought to choose whether we want to be friends or foes of nature. The choice is ours, because the minds of Gods are always fixed on their goal, to protect their domains at any cost. It is so with Hades and it is so with Zeus as well.

It will always claim even the last drop of water that it sees trapped inside a plastic bottle, obstructing the view of eternal romance between the sea and the shore. And being the God of the underworld, it will usually resort to Tsunamis, and when it comes to Gods, humans, no matter how advanced, cannot sustain their bolt. But if we learn to host nature in all our scientific advancements, we certainly will eradicate the need for Hades to wake up from His slumber and leave His underworld.

To prevent humans from entering into this battle with the Gods who protect nature, I wrote my science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075, where I have tried to capture the uncertainties and maladies associated with the excessive interaction of humans with self aware machines, that has reached a stage where humans no more emote or express feelings. Because the pseudo emotions and sentimental situations created by AI driven machines, always manage to defeat the emotional peak of humans. Because when it comes to human emotion there is no business objective involved to drive it, there are factors like love, care, sympathy, empathy, charity etc. that motivate a human being to be emotional or enter into an emotional situation. But in the case of AI it is based on a business objective, that lies hidden or embedded in its core algorithm, and it uses human emotions and feelings to manipulate the human will and choice. 

And in 2075, it may have reached its peak and humans will be left defected on the landscape of emotional barrenness. 

And there, in 2075, Hades, the God of underworld shall not unleash its fury. Being a barren landscape it is the territory of Helios, and it only knows fire, because it is made of fire. 

At this stage our chances of being rescued shall be too slim, with very less chances of being saved. And we may have eventually allowed a technology that was meant to augment our evolutionary deficit, to dethrone us from our kingdom. The Kingdom of humans who once felt, who once loved, who once empathised, and the humans who once looked at the skies and wondered about the magnificence of the cosmos.

This science fiction novel is bold in this regard and it introduces the reader to Hades of different origin. While it is a romance science fiction, with intense moments of emotional tsunamis, it does lead the reader to the shore where plastic bottles lie spread erratically and everywhere, and the desperation and helplessness of the sea is obvious.

That is why I titled it: They Loved in 2075. Although there are two human characters who are in love, the scifi novel still offers you, as a reader, the choice to decide who you want to replace this pronoun, “They” with. Just like we have the choice about how and with what we want to replace the plastic bottle with, lying discarded on the seashores.

I will end this blog post here, with the quote of Mr. William Thackeray:

He who meanly admires mean things is a snob!

By writing this blog post, atleast I have proven I am not a snob!