The Rubber Band Theory

The Rubber Band Theory

The Rubber Band Theory: Walking home from the MacArthur BART station the other day, I pondered the possible fates of humankind and our obsession with technology. We (Amber, Sage, Kelly, and myself) had gone to see the movie Synthetic Pleasures a week or so ago. The problem is fairly obvious, but most commonly ignored. Mankind has been progressing in our technologies for millennia now (from stone and clubs, to pottery, to wheels, to light-bulbs, to computers, to etc.), but our planet and our society is gradually becoming destroyed in the process of "technological progress." Some people say we got to just stop progress! Some people think it is inevitable: we're on a run-away train headed for collision. while some other have the highest degree of optimism. So I asked myself, and then I looked for a sign.

I found one rubber band lying on the side walk. Pulling the rubber band represent the increasing tension of our world against our own will. Will it snap, or can it withstand the strain and remain intact? I gradually pull the rubber band, stretching it out between my two hands. It looks fairly weathered and decrepit--I don't think it can withstand much---SNAP!!! It broke. I toss it to the side and continue walking. So that's the fate of human existence--and understanding given to me through a small but profound omen picked up off the sidewalk. I walk on and ponder the implications.

I see a second rubber band on the side walk. Just in picking it up I can already feel that this band holds more integrity, and appears much stronger. I stretch it out between my hands several times, and then once more--all the way out to maximum elasticity--and it holds, retracting to its usual, limp form with a sense that it could do that a hundred times over. So what's that mean then? Maybe we are on the wrong path with "technological progress." Maybe it is just a dead end--and we won't even find out that it is a dead end for another 500 years or so when our spaceships crumble apart when they accelerate towards the speed of light. And then we'll have to drop it all, go back to the old drawing board again--begin again with sticks and stones! I don't want to believe in that option. Why should we have to turn back. All this chaos we are going through today--all this bad technology, and the misuses of technology--maybe it's all just a stage we've got to get through to find out, so we know, what not to do with technology. and maybe we need these modern elements of technology (i.e., the A.I. computer, the cellular phone, the internet, cruise missile, genetic engineering) in order to get to the stages beyond these. Maybe it's all just a matter of paradigm shifts, and sooner or later (hopefully sooner that Armageddon)--we'll achieve the necessary realizations, and shift into a healthier existence which won't deny the progress we have already made (as corrupt as it appears to be). But what then, is the third option? What else can be done with a rubber band? It either stretches out and breaks, or stretches out and retracts again. If the tension has got to be here we might as well use it to our advantage.

I pull the rubber band out between my hands, wrap one end along my thumb and shoot it through the air towards some house owner's front door, where it strikes the surface with a gentle THWAP, and falls the ground, rested. Now that's a paradigm shift. Modern man's tension will send us flying into another dimension. Everything we are experiencing now is necessary for the flight.