Since ancient times, human had been trying very hard to escape death. Many rulers wanted to live for eternity so that they can continue their everlasting empire dreams which seems so far-fetched. Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Is it really possible to evade death and what will eternity life bring us?
A married couple, Arakawa and Madeline Gins, have boldly declared that "We decided not to die". They believe that human can reinvent ourselves as immortal beings by changing and challenging our perceptions. The best way to shake up our beliefs, as presented by Arakawa and Gins, is to change the very nature of how and where we live. They have designed residences that force the occupant to interact with his or her surroundings in a different way. That is the idea behind the Bioscleave House, a home constructed in New York that will have its residents living forever if their belief is true.
On first look at the house, it appears it would buy you a lot of paint. Both the exterior and the interior are splashed with vibrant colors with names like pink popsicle, tricycle red and traffic light green. About 40 colors are in the house altogether.
The home contains a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a study. That might sound conventional, but the kitchen is sunken into the center of the house. Bumpy flooring rises around the kitchen in undulating waves. Around the funky flooring are the other rooms, but they lack some of the traditional comforts of home you might expect. For one, none of the rooms have doors, not even the bathroom. Good luck trying to plug in a nightlight, because the outlets are scattered at odd angles. And if you had hoped for a room with a view to spend immortality, better get used to the windows that are at unconventional heights.
Those windows have one important effect that starts to get at the heart of what Arakawa and Gins are trying to accomplish. Because they are either very high or low, you cannot establish where the horizon is. You do not know what is level and what is not. The roof is not always a fixed distance from the floor. You cannot use your normal ways of getting around, which you may not even have to think about at this point; tools like depth perception and distance do not apply. Arakawa and Gins claim that losing balance and using your body in surprising ways to maintain equilibrium will stimulate the immune system, which will eventually stop aging and death.
Human has always try to evade death through many ways. Examples are finding elixir which is believed to give you eternal life, improving the medical science to stop aging and cryogenic freezing yourself until science improvement is made. In my opinion, what is the use of living forever without a purpose in life? By having no meaningful purpose and yet a never-ending life, I believe we will just become living zombies who might in the end (technically there is no end if eternity exists) wish that we can end our life. Self-contradicting is very common in human, we always want the best for us, but only to realize that it may not be the best for us. Just like one thing I realized long ago, "The more knowledge you gained, the more you know you dont know". Sometimes, I feel that it is better to be naive and live a simple life.
PS: Parts of the information and pictures are extracted from www.howstuffworks.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment