Consolation Through Organization

Since the dawn of their existence, humans have obsessed over the use of simple, geometric shapes. Nature could easily be broken down into these shapes; trees were triangles, rocks were circles, and humans were rectangles. The epitome of early art are the cave paintings of Lascaux, where animals dash about the elaborately winding walls, and still withhold the beauty of when they were first created. Although humans progressed to learn how to capture the essence of organic shapes and expand their repertoire of artistic skills, the most important shape they have ever discovered was a three-dimensional one: the cube. Almost every single house is modeled off the shape of a cube. Cars are shaped like cubes. Newspaper dispensers, toasters, beds, and bath tubs are shaped like cubes, or perhaps rectangular prisms. However, the most important device ever devised was the box.

Boxes fill the role of holding “things,” containing “things,” storing “things.” Humans tend to favor organizing their possessions into boxes, and lining these boxes on shelves, rather than allowing these possessions to haplessly pile everywhere. Humans love to order and categorize, and therefore: organization.

Attics and basements often find themselves cluttered with boxes neatly stacked upon each other, some of them half-filled, with useless items aesthetically and partially drooping over the boundaries of the box. The contents of these boxes are deftly described with the quick strokes of a permanent marker. Just as these relics of the past are quickly forgotten, aspects of the mind—such as thoughts, memories, and dreams—can easily occupy a box or two, and fill the deepest recesses of our minds.

Although the fact that humans tend to forget things, or rather, willfully allow things to depart from the forefront of their minds, would seem to be a bad thing, it is really quite useful. Often, humans like to shed their former skins, and allow the ghosts of their pasts to quickly bury themselves away from conscious thought, as if to be at peace with the people they have been. In fact, the less that humanity has to fret over, the happier it tends to be. Humans have great difficulty combating the great beast, Stress.

Ever since humans invented the box, they’ve found clever ways to sneak various “things” into boxes. Governments discovered that by putting the minds of their citizens into the box labeled “fear,” they gain a lot of control over the actions of these citizens, for they don’t realize that their perception is skewed by four cardboard walls, excessively taped and stapled together. Thus, we see that boxes serve a greater, less benign purpose than simply organizing physical items. Boxes are being used to categorize that which is not meant to be categorized.

There happens to exist a box delicately labeled “science.” Its locale is in the near vicinity of another box labeled “religion.” These two boxes are similar because of this: people like to put hopes, fears, insecurities, and faith into these boxes indiscriminately. Humans have put limits on these two infinitely broad subjects, and have allowed them to be at war with each other, when, in reality, they are two very different matters.  The benefit of hiding away these scary, very human thoughts in science and religion is that humans no longer have to consider what to think, but to hide behind a label that denotes some greater purpose, or intellect. Humans don’t feel the need to discover, but to assume that there are facts, and those facts are, well, facts.

If one were to look at the way the dictionary defines science, one will discover that there isn’t but one definition listed. Some of these entries, dare I say, are oversimplified and list science as “knowledge” (Collins). Other entries like to include that this knowledge was gained from observation and experimentation, which is much closer to the truth of what science is. However, the entry that most catches my eye is “skill or technique” (Collins).  This last entry most accurately describes exactly what science is: a skill or technique used to discover our world. Science is not, and should not be something that people can put faith into, and therefore limit science from what it’s meant to do: explore the world. Science was never meant to disprove the existence of religion, though it is being used that way. Science is the simple, rewarding route to discovery, and if it so happens to make people reconsider their views of the planet, than that is by chance. Science is not changing the way the world works, it’s observing the way the world works, and therefore aids in human creation; modern medicine is constantly evolving with new discoveries made by science. Science doesn’t disprove or prove why the universe is what it is, but rather the fact that the universe is, and broadening our understanding of exactly what that means.

If humans had been too stubborn to rethink their views on the world being flat, or that everything revolves around the earth, astronomy would be even farther behind than it is now, and astronomy, really, is not very far along. Our understanding of the stars and planets is close to nothing in comparison to how much there is to learn. Humans need to keep an open mind when considering science, for it is just a process. We barely understand our world, and opposition to the discovery of our planet is unnecessarily hindering the gain of knowledge from simple observation and experimentation. If humanity is not ready to accept controversial experimentation, such as stem cell research, then science needs to find a new subject to experiment on, for there are countless opportunities. Perhaps later generations will accept such experimentation. The simple truth is: science is too large to be held back by silly arguments, and should be versatile enough to study different areas.

Although humans like to order, categorize, and thus organize, we should never limit great endeavors because we are afraid of what we may find. Insecurities and doubts are tools for discovery of not only ourselves, but each other, and the world we inhabit, and should never hinder our ability to learn.

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