Re-defining our boundaries

Humanity as a single entity experienced the devastations of 2 world wars,how allegiance towards nation states (called by the name motherland or fatherland) fostered nationalistic fervors and pushed promising youth towards becoming expendable resources at the hands of leaders of nation. How budgets got diverted into defence spending instead of infrastructure investment? How an idea of “Nation” became common place and was taken for granted in a span of couple of centuries? How people who identified themselves with their family names, clans and geographical identity came to believe themselves as citizens of a vague “notion” which came to be called as “nation”. It came with its promises, a reserve of firing power, a body to uphold laws, a constitution to ensure the rights of its citizens. It also came with  alienation of individuals from their own innermost callings ,encouraging the lesser privileged to sacrifice their existence towards ensuring the safety of the whole. It is currently at a state, where we tend to forget, it is a concept forged by humans to organise itself, to give a sense of identity and mobilise action at a large scale . Every concept/idea has a time and we see again and again in history that new ideas take over and uproot old ones.

We witness today, cities and corporations become more powerful by trade and connectivity than firing power (Parag Khanna : Mapping the future of countries), where soft connections of trade, travel and genuine relations between individuals blurring the boundaries set by nations. The upstarts of the sharing economy, (airbnb: TED Talk, uber: TED talk ) are laying the foundations for building a world without boundaries, fuelled by human connections crossing national boundaries and for a new future based on trust and sharing. We start to know citizens of an alien nation as individuals with connections to their community, we develop fascination and understanding towards their culture, we become involved in their problems and struggles (often offer a helping hand) and start building bridges of trust and caring, connecting communities. We become more and more identified by our connections. We start to re-define national identities and often are part of corporations that forge connections between nations through infrastructure spending, technological advancement and commitment towards causes (climate change, renewable resources) that are larger than any nation by itself. We humans are pushing the boundaries of “nations”, than getting defined ourselves by it.

We spend most of our waking life at work, doing meaningful work, creating connections, building infrastructure, transforming dreams into realities and in the bargain creating a better world. We solve problems that are creations of an earlier world view, and many a times realise that the clash is not between realities,it is between ideas (ideas that prevailed against ideas that are trying to succeed them). We are all living in a hopeful future where people with passion trying to achieve their dreams and build something for themselves (Linus Torvalds: TED talk), realise in a short time that their invention or idea can be scaled and can bring benefits to the whole mankind, can disrupt regimes/industries, can join hands in building a better world and they grow stronger in their appetite and ability, innovating and amplifying their effectiveness, curating a future for us to inhabit. Not at all surprising to see “the whole world is conspiring to help them achieve their dreams.”