Essays Prevention is Better Than Cure, Necessity is the Mother of Invention, Civilization & Life is Action Not Contemplation
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Prevention is Better Than Cure
Health is the greatest asset a person possesses. It is an important gift by nature to us. Health is precious and everyone must look after it carefully. The disease is the worst enemy of good health.
There are various kinds of bacteria and viruses in the atmosphere which can attack a man and make him ill. How could diseases be kept apart from affecting us?
Drugs like aspirin, quinine, penicillin, etc. have been used by doctors all over the world to cure influenza, malaria, etc. Antibiotics are given by doctors to fight serious infections.
However, these cures lead to various damage to the body as they have a weakening effect on the body. Hence it has often been advised that an overdose of medicines be avoided.
In fact, as far as possible, one should let nature find its own ways of curing the patient and medicines should be taken only when the patient is suffering from a violent of some disease.
Self-medication must be avoided. We must prevent any disease from attacking us by eating nutritious food and building up our resistance to such diseases causing bacteria.
Regular exercise, plenty of fresh filtered water, fruits, etc, can be used to prevent diseases from coming close to us. We must be careful about the cleanliness of the water we drink because many diseases are borne by water.
Sugar and salt must always be taken in limited amounts and we should stay away from spicy and fried food. One must make all these efforts of protecting oneself from Disease.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
It has been rightly said that necessity is the mother of inventions, most of the inventions and discoveries owe their successful operation to necessity. Unless there is want we can not struggle to attain our goal.
The history of human progress in all walks of life is the history of man's endeavor to reach new goals. When the man felt hungry, he started hunting and till the land. The need for shelter led the man to build hut and houses.
In this age of science where a race is going on, deadly weapons are being manufactured due to necessity. Fear of enemy has forced power hungry countries to invent destructive weapons of death.
The proverbial crow's necessity of water forced it to find out the way to quench its thirst. In political life, it is again the necessity which leads us to think of new forms of governments – whether socialistic or otherwise in the pattern.
As new need arise, fresh methods are devised to meet them. New plans are hatched to find a solution to different problems. What is impossible in the world? Man can achieve anything. He wants to be provided he puts in hard labor and sincere efforts.
Where there is a will there is a way. Constant efforts do bear fruit. Where there is any necessity, there is some invention, Some research, in order to meet necessity. All our inventions and discoveries are the direct result of our pressing needs.
Civilization
We believe that we live in a wonderful era, an era of all round progress. We think that we have excelled and surpassed our forefathers in almost every respect. The twentieth century seems to us a glorious age and we pride ourselves on its achievements.
No doubt, there is justification for this satisfaction and complacency. The science has made tremendous progress. The use of machine in industry has eliminated human labor. Electricity is serving us in thousand ways. Railways, ships and airplanes have reduced distances and made travel fast and comfortable.
Apart from scientific progress that makes our civilization so great, politically also much has been achieved Countries under foreign domination have been liberated Our age has seen many countries under foreign domination being liberated In the social sphere, our progress is no less marked; outdated customs are vanishing: the standard of living of people is rising.
The working class is getting better wages and more facilities. The world percentage of literacy has greatly risen. Besides, we have achieved a higher level of culture than was reached by our ancestors. We live in a truly enlightened age. There is greater refinement than ever before.
People have become polished in their manners and behavior. There is a widespread appreciation of art and literature, a keen interest is evinced in books, periodicals, paintings, music, dancing exhibitions and the like.
There is, however, a dark side of the picture as well and in any examination of modern civilization, we must not shut your eyes to it A closer scrutiny of modern civilization will reveal its defects. In the political field, for instance, there is much cause for dismay and disappointment.
Our age has been witness to two great wars that have affected humanity. Democracy has had to face serious challenges and suffer serious setbacks. The rise of Fascism and Nazism, and Communism has been a serious menace to liberty and democracy.
The loss of life and property in the two world wars was chiefly due to the deadly weapons invented by science. This shows that scientific progress has not been an unmixed blessing. Long-range guns, flying bombs, magnetic mines, submarines, poisonous gases and, above all, the atom bomb and other nuclear weapons, represent the destructive side of science.
Again, our industrial civilization has produced an adverse effect on health and beauty. We have to live in congested towns and breathe air that is adulterated with factory smoke. The use of machinery has proved a mixed blessing.
The search for excitement, for pleasure, for new sensations is the order of the day. The craze for fashions in dress is widespread. All these tendencies are reflected in books periodicals, paintings and films.
There is a bloom of pornography in literature. Pictures in the nude are becoming popular. Obscenity is defended in the name of art. Religions seem to have no place in modern civilization. Science has shaken people’s faith in God. God and the soul are now antiquated concepts.
Our civilization is purely materialistic. Spiritual values no longer govern the actions of people With the loss of spiritual faith, people have also lost their main support and source of consolation in the hour of distress.
Men do not know what to live for. Boredom with life and a feeling of ennui reflect their frame of mind. Thus a general restlessness prevails in society.
Life is Action Not Contemplation
This quotation, “Life is Action Not Contemplation” from German poet and philosopher Goethe carries a valuable idea. Life is not just a reverie, a dream It is much more than that, it is action without energetic action, life would stagnate.
Without great deeds, life would become static and would lose much of its charm. A life of thought and Reflection would be quite futile if thought is never transformed into practical action. It is not that contemplation has no place in life.
Meditation and silent prayer are purifying agents for the soul and a sedative for nerves. But contemplation should never be regarded as the aim of human life. Great ideas had not been translated into action by practical men. If the teachings of thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire had not been given a concrete shape, there would have been no revolution in France.
The march of civilization has largely depended upon men of action, men for whom adventure was the breath of life, men in whom the desire to do brave deeds was supreme. How much does the world owe to its great explorers, navigator and mountain climbers who faced the wrath of nature and fury of the elements in order to satisfy their inner urge for action?
There are a large number of men who have in one way or other contributed to the progress and prosperity of mankind or who have been responsible for the realization of the great ideals of the world.
George Washington Abraham Lincoln and other great men were persons whose capacity for action was exceptional. It is indeed interesting to imagine what would have happened if all these and similar men and women of action had passed their lives in contemplation. Would not human life still be primitive?
The attitude of mind expressed by Tennyson is certainly not to be envied or encouraged. Life would come to a standstill if we were all to spend our existence in dreamful case. We should, therefore, say with Ulysses that “to strive to seek, to find and not to yield, is the sum of life”.
We ought not “to pause, to make an end to rust“. AS Carlyle says, “Work while it is called a day for the night cometh wherein no man can work” Merely to brood and muse over life would be a poor way of spending time.
If we were all to act upon Stevenson’s advice and turn idlers (even in his sense of the world), life would become exceedingly dull. There is a keen pleasure in achievement and great joy in creation compared with which the satisfaction born of mere contemplation is nothing.
Besides, the desire for action is something irrepressible except in morbid, lazy people. Nature has endowed us with inexhaustible reserves of energy and we must utilize them in action War itself, which is so destructive may be looked upon as a necessity since it serves as an outlet for superabundant energy that accumulates in human beings.
In short, it is not desirable to retire into jungles or monasteries like medieval Christian monks. Action is the essence of life. These prophets moved about among men and made energetic efforts to teach mankind the ideal way of life.
