What would your response be, if asked what is the world? For some, the world is the mountains, the sky, the oceans, the dry land. Basically earth and everything in it, themselves included. Human soon widened our understanding, to everything within the observable universe, and beyond.

When describing knowledge, you could say it is facts, awareness, informations, acquired from experience. This means that knowledge is gathered from human’s interaction with the world. We perceive the world, and analyze through wisdom. This is what we call human perception.

The wisdom of a man is equal to the amount of truth he knows. Through out history, humans have gathered knowledge great enough to establish strong civilizations, advance technologies. Since the beginning, mankind has been faced with challenges. It is these challenges that made humans venture in trying to understand the nature of things, in hope we could at least ease our burdens, if not eradicate them completely. We started by asking questions, which gave room for experimentations.

It is through asking questions humans has been able to gather knowledge throughout history. Today we have great civilizations, advanced technologies we didn’t have before, massive structures, better road network we didn’t have before, people wear the best of clothes, looking all clean and shiny. Yet why is the world perceived to be going backwards in the presence of abundant knowledge?

To attempt answer of the above question; the problem is largely linked to the fact that, humans perceive the external world as the judgment for civilization and development, forgetting how they came to be in the first place. All things came to be when the human mind shine it light upon existence. It is through our perception of reality, that we have been able to create everything we see today out of the already existing resources, created by God.

Even though humans have been able to gather knowledge throughout history as we can see in our civilizations, massive structures, advanced science, art, cultures, humans are actually babies. The world has been around for billions of years according to discoveries, but as an individual, you only exist as a visitor with a finite timeframe. You gather wisdom from the existing abundant of knowledge available to you.

This is why even though knowledge is expanding due to the works of our predecessors, the world is going backwards, because we focus more on development of material things rather than the things that truly matter; developing the mind, which has brought about the development of the material world in the first place.

For a better understanding, i would use an analogy. Suppose you go back in time, and you pick a new born male human child from the stone age, then bring him into the present day. With the proper care and experience, he would grow up into the present day human, and also act like the present day human. Now, return that grown man to the stone age. His ability to survive would depend on his knowledge about the time, and his ability to adapt with the environment, harsh weather, dangerous creatures, without technology and present day structures. If his mind is properly trained, he could build a paradise out of nothing, and civilize the stone age men of the time. Which also means the next generation of that time might be able to speak at least.

This teaches us that true development is of the mind. At birth, there is no difference between the stone age man, and the present day man. It is the level of knowledge man has been able to gather as they get older that makes the difference. When we live in a society which focuses more on the material world, rather than the things of the mind which has brought about the development of the material world, we would have people wearing civilized clothes, living in civilized societies as we described it, but has lost the ability to make proper use of their minds. This is worse than in the stone age, only that this time, there is a societal standard guiding humanity.

The external world is not development in itself, rather a means to an end, to guide and aid in developing the mind, which would in return develop the external world.

©️ Victor E. Ojei, 2024.