Maybe it is not the most original book that I could
have chosen, but it is very important for me, as much as its content or as a
catapult to the unknown world of science fiction for me back then, when I
decided to read my first no assigned book for my teacher, yeah guess which one.
For the first time in my life I began to be aware of my own future in this
world and the future of the world itself.
Aldous Huxley puts us in a reality in which there are no diseases,
wars are over, nobody is poor, and EVERYONE is happy. Pretty much we are in
heaven, don't we? And personally, despite what many others would say, yes, it is
heaven on earth. But here comes the truly one million dollar question: how much
and what do we had to paid to get this happiness? It was a very expensive
price, we had to disclaim literature, arts, culture, philosophy and family.
People live in default castes, child are born in test tubes, they are
conditioned to do an specific job for the rest of their lives and
they love it. If they feel the slightest signs of stress or sadness, they
take Soma and all the bad feelings fade away. Love ceased to exist long time
ago and now there is only the sexual desire.
In words of the own Mustafa Mond, resident world controller of Western Europe: "People are happy; they get what they
want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re
safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully
ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers;
they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so
conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave.
And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma."
All of this made me question many things, specially this
last quote. How far or how close are we to this future? (I'm sure that is not
the exact same future we are ahead, but maybe it is, anyway that is something
for another blog) and what should we do to avoid it? Perhaps this could be the
way to stop all the child's death in third world countries, the wars in the
middle east and the thousands of illness that exist today (sadly the list goes
and goes, it would never end). And the truth is that these are questions that I
keep making to myself until today.
