To save human lives or save humanity?

Advancements in medical science in the last two centuries have saved billions of human lives. By improving the chances of the aged, sick and enfeebled to live on and survive, it has dampened the influence of external forces of natural selection on the human evolutionary processes. We have increased the chances of survival for all - not just the fittest. Advances in medical sciences have - generally speaking - given the weakest and less adaptable among us an equal chance of survival and propagation in the human gene pool. Together with standardised education systems and general social welfare, we have leveled the playing field a bit for everyone. Might and physical endurance are nor longer the only criteria that determine the dominating hierarchy within our species; making way for intelligence, dexterity and mental resourcefulness to also pack a heavy punch. Modern medicine is perhaps the best example of how we have been able to apply our intelligence to overcome physical deficiencies. We have invented a vast array of prosthetics, antibiotics and steroids to help us overcome our common physical ailments.

Long before the advent of modern medicine, we learned to apply our intelligence to build tools - and indeed weapons - that would multiply our physical strength in fights for domination. Since then, it was no longer sheer physical strength and endurance, but the ability to apply our 'intelligence' to solve problems and overcome challenges that determined our evolutionary path. Arguably, this is very much a part of the process of 'natural selection'. Given that the tools we have built far surpass our own power and capabilities in many ways, physical prowess have become less vital for our survival. Our ability to manipulate and design our immediate environment has all but removed the imperative for us to adapt to its changes. In fact, our ability to do so has become the most dominant factor in determining our survival.

So now, it is no longer a question of how capable we are of adapting to our environment, but how capable we are of changing it to fit our needs that matter - or so it seems. This reversal of the 'natural selection' process is a relatively recent phenomenon - only a few generations old - and therefore its long term effects are not yet evident. We do not yet know how it will effect our chances of long term survival as a species. In fact it could take centuries - if we survive that long - for us to find out. That is because the recent changes in our evolutionary priorities have not yet been tested. Indeed global warming and our growing population's increasing demand for scares resources are testing the sustainability of the global Eco-system that sustains us. The true extent of our ability to control the environment will be tested - probably for the first time - when our consumption levels tip over the ability of our environment to replenish it. 

The inconvenient truth that lies at the heart of most global issues such as border protection, the greenhouse effect, political conflicts and conflicts between humans and our environment however, is that they are all consequences of the human population level that is increasingly becoming unsustainable.


An instinctive aversion to death and sickness is shared by all beings. The tendency to care and nurture the dying and impaired however, is relatively rare and found only among the more intelligent species with complex social structures. Our ability to love and care for one another is a defining characteristic of the human condition and arguably one of our few endearing features. Yet they may also be the biggest obstacles in the way of opening up an objective discussion about the human over-population crisis facing the planet today. Could we prevent ourselves or anyone else from intervening to prolong the life of a cancer patient even when it seems inevitable that the decease would soon claim its victim? If a man and woman has twelve children, which one of them could we recommend that they rather shouldn't have had? Indeed our emotions get in the way. Death or abandonment of another human being in peril is impossible to advocate, and even the practise of  contraception has long been frowned upon.

It is one thing to be warned about the depleting natural resources and the question of human over-population in the 21st Century; but strangely at this point, even at the risk of contaminating the subject with an unintended religious undertone, I can't help but recall the words of Jesus Christ at the eighth station of the cross. On his way to Calvary to be crucified, the Gospel according to Luke in its 23rd Chapter, from verse 28 to 31 record the words of Jesus as follows;

28 But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
29 For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’  
30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’  
31 For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Centuries of civilisation and culture has conditioned humanity to glorify the fertile and denounce the barren, value life and creation over death and destruction - and for good reason. However, infant mortality, deadly decease and occupational health are modern metrics. They were not issues that the old world had to grapple with, because death and sickness should have been accepted as daily realities before the miraculous interventions of medicine. It is only in the past two centuries that medical miracles have created an impression that it is within human capability to fight death and sickness and expect to win more often than not. The wonder works of modern medicine reinforces our false perception of death and sickness as the result of negligence or human faults, rather than inescapable facts of life.

The pharmaceutical industry also feeds into the unyielding human desire to avoid sickness and prolong life, by feeding on the rich chemical resources of the natural world including protected plant and animal species for producing medicines. In less than a century, it has risen to become one of the most powerful commercial lobbies that dictate world politics and economics today with exclusive rights to exploit entire species of plants for profit.

Therefore, it is more likely that our efforts to avoid sickness and prolong life will continue with more vigour, empowered by further advances in technology. The sum result of the advances we have made in medical science has enabled an explosion in human population that has tilted Eco-systems out of balance. It is perhaps a failure of the socioeconomic model of capitalism, that the motives of our society and those of the economy need not be aligned for them to work together. Thus while the result of our advances in medicine is healing and the prolongation of life, the motive that drives the industry is primarily its financial rewards. In a democratic world order that is spurred on by capitalism, it is unlikely that anyone - least of all politicians - would be willing to advocate steps to stem the growth of human population and the rate of our consumption of our planets shared resources. It seems there is not a single notion in our moral make up that lets us objectively decide between a human life and the greater good of the human species, let alone choose between a human life and an entire species of plant or animals. The dominance we have gained by virtue of our superior intelligence and dexterity will always ensure that we prevail even at the cost of other species.

Medical marvels may have given us a false sense that it is within our power to dictate terms to death and sickness, but that false sense of security stands in the way of addressing the issue of human over-population which is critical to the long-term survival of the planet and many of its species, including - ironically - humanity itself. As much as it is nevertheless possible for the human population to increase exponentially still, it would also be inevitable that limits imposed by the natural ecological systems that sustain us will eventually rectify the balance. Studies of overpopulation in the animal world suggest that when this happens, it is more likely to be a sudden collapse in our population than a gradual wind-down. Sadly, a sudden collapse of the human population would inevitably result in the loss of the collective knowledge that we have accumulated over thousands of years. Given the volume of information we stand to loose in such an event, it will be like the burning of the library at Alexandria all over again - about hundred million times over.

Ironically, the process of natural selection generally favours the resilient and most adaptable. Therefore, it is intriguing to think about who will survive in the event of a sudden collapse of the global human population. Will it be those who are physically strong, those with the best immune systems, or will it be the most intelligent or educated, or the More resourceful, and adaptable, or a combination of the above?

What is Trinity today?

Address to the Trinity College Assembly on 21st June 2010 on behalf of the Batch of 2000 to mark our 10-year reunion

The Principal, Vice Principal, members of staff, Batch mates and fellow Trinitians:

My name is Harendra Alwis and I am here with my classmates from the batch of 2000.

We are sincerely thankful to the Principal for giving us the opportunity to be here with you and consider it an honour to speak on behalf of my batch mates today.

Ten years ago, Trinity was more than a memory to us, and today, it is a great privilege to be able to come back to school after a decade since we last wore the white uniforms and sat at assembly like you do now.

We are all delighted to be here. Though only a few of us are here in person, many are here in spirit.

On a day like today ten years ago, Trinity - led by David Luchow, had won the first leg of the Bradby; 32 points to 25, in a thrilling game at the Sugathadasa Stadium. It is surpassed in my memory only by the game we witnessed just over a week ago. Perhaps it was the sweetest coincidence; that both games started off with Trinity scoring within the first two minutes in almost identical three-quarter moves. Despite the seven point margin we had created on the 18th of June ten years ago, it took two brave and unforgettable penalties from the boot of Thisal Jayawardena our full-back – including one from the edge of the 40 meter line in the dying minutes of the second leg at Bogambara - for us to retain the shield that year.

The fate of this year’s battle, its heroes and the unforgettable moments that some of you may recall ten years from now, are still waiting to be etched on the sands of history. We wish you well.

Today I would like to place one question in front of you. Just one question... perhaps a challenge. Much like the result of the Bradby Shield of 2000, what Trinity has been in the past is already known and analysed in great detail. The question I place in front of you is; “What is Trinity today”? Like the result of the Bradby Shield of 2010, the answer to that question will be shaped by the results of our actions, and decisions we take in our lifetimes. What matters is the present moment, where the hopes and dreams of tomorrow are ground into the fine sands of time. It is the slate on which our history is being written. The achievements we look back on will not merely be shaped by the aspirations we have today, but rather the accumulated results of what we say and do in the present moment.

It was more than twenty four years ago, that I and my colleagues of the batch of 2000 walked into Trinity for the first time, with fourteen years’ worth of lessons to be shared in front of us. The friends we found during that time remain the most treasured and trusted even now. Fourteen long years would pass by, where we would survive bone-breaking tackles at Pallekele, scorching bouncers at Asgiriya and the terrible food at Candy Corner!

The last six or seven years in school were perhaps the most memorable for us, not because they were the most recent, but because they were the best. It was those few years at Trinity which opened our eyes to the realities of life, our minds to the richness of the world, our shoulders to responsibility and our hearts to love.

Looking back at the decade that has passed since, our presence here today bears testimony that our Trinity education did not end when we left school. In fact, it was years later that we really understood most of the lessons learned here at Trinity. Let me give you one example. Whenever we wanted to meet the vice-principal at the time, Mr Paul Jeyaraj, we had the habit of peering into his office to see whether he was free and if he was, we would knock on his door to speak to him. This was an experience which often turned out to be what we jokingly called “Marking the register at the zoo” because the vice principal insisted that we 'monkeys' and 'donkeys' had better make a prior appointment if we wanted to see him. We never understood the reason then, because we often met him when we felt he wasn’t very busy. Yet by that he taught us not to take for granted, another person’s time let alone our own.

However, it is not just our attachment to such memories as well as the people and places associated with them that brought us back to our Alma Mater. As I mentioned earlier, the Trinity education does not end when we leave school, because we are all 'Trinitians' for life. That is our privilege and our burden. The way people get to know and experience Trinity depends on our ambassadorship.

The forefathers of Trinity in Colonial Ceylon, when they pioneered the teaching of Sinhala, Agriculture, Buddhism and Social Studies, were deeply aware of their mission to produce leaders who would be able to understand, deeply, the people they would eventually lead in a free and independent nation. They placed lasting reminders of their vision in legends they inspired and embedded their message into the Trinity they built – most overtly in the College Chapel and monuments such as the Asgiriya Stadium. I would like to invite you to meditate with me, about the murals on the eastern walls of the Chapel.

The story of the Good Samaritan epitomizes the spirit of service and care for fellow men. Trinitians are inspired to be compassionate and selfless in the service of leadership.

Those of us, who are most familiar with the bearded depiction of Christ in western art, would be moved at first glance to search for Jesus in the ‘Washing of the feet’. Here the artist highlights an act of leadership that is made extraordinary by its humility where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. David Paynter invites us to identify Christ in that mural, not by his looks, but rather by his actions. So it is that the world should recognize us as Trinitians, not by the colours of our flag, the jersey, tie or blazer we wear, but by the way we act and behave.

The third mural of Christ’s crucifixion gives emphasises the fact that leaders are called above all, to sacrifice, even suffering and painful hardship.

If you look around you, such qualities of leadership, the spirit of service, humility and sacrifice are rare characteristics among those who assume leadership in our community and in the world.

Trinity has produced a great variety of leaders in the past. The mantle of responsibility to rediscover and renew the vision of leadership that has made this institution a beacon of light for Sri Lankans, and indeed the world, is upon us today. This place and moment of history that we occupy, often tempts us to think about positions of leadership in terms of the power and prestige they offer us. The founders of Trinity had a more timeless and enduring image of leadership for us implanted in the painting in the side Chapel instead. The first of David Paynter’s murals in our chapel, it captures the moment when the mother of James and John – two of Jesus’ disciples – came to plead with Jesus, to let her two sons sit at his right hand and left hand when in heaven. Jesus asks in return “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink?”

As Trinitians, we too are privileged enough to aspire for high status. Perhaps we are not all consumed by a desire to sit beside God in heaven, but many of you will sit at executive boardrooms and even the legislature of the country and governing bodies in the country and of the world. The question posed to us is whether we are ready to bear the great responsibility that comes with great power and to endure the hardships, trials and tribulations that are associated with honest and forthright leadership. Having seen more of the world during the last ten years, I can reliably warn you how you would often be tempted, to wilfully ignore your responsibility to lead with courage or fail to defend the ideals that Trinity would have taught us; and how many times we would yield to such temptations and forgo that responsibility in fear that we may lose your entitlements to convenience, comfort and safety.

You, the Trinitians of today, and us, the Trinitians of ten years ago, and a generation in between have grown up knowing mostly the violence of war and the rule of brutality and might. We are already disadvantaged for having been conditioned to take the violence, hostility and the rule of might in our society for granted as facts of life. It is against such a backdrop that you and I are called to lead, inspired by the vision that the founders of the school had for us. They portrayed their vision of the Trinitian not merely from the palette of their manifestly Christian ethos but the universal values of selfless service, humility and sacrifice.

It seems the expectations that we have of ourselves today - such as passing exams, winning the Bradby or earning a comfortable living, seem too modest sometimes. We need our own expectations of ourselves and the expectations others have of us, to be higher and more substantial. We also need to learn to use those high expectations to inspire us to greater things rather than consider them a burden.

The challenge before the Trinity Family today is; to understand that it is not enough that we win the Bradby Shield or the big match, but also to know that no matter where we go or what we do, we are representing one of the greatest institutions in the land and indeed of the world. Being a Trinitian is an obligation to uphold the spirit of Trinity and of your families and everything else you represent, with courage and honour.

Sitting as you do in the College hall, or when you are wearing the jerseys at Pallekelle or whites at Asgiriya captured in the glory of the moment, you may not realise that this is only the beginning. Your time at Trinity; even though it may be by far the most memorable and enriching, is the first of many great journeys and memorable times that await you in life. The significance of the results of a game or the achievements of a season will eventually fade over time. The way the lessons you learn at Trinity mould your character will last your individual lifetimes. However, the glory you bring to the school by your conduct and show of character in difficult times both during your student days and thereafter, will inspire many generations.

So Trinity, in our generations and our lifetimes, will eventually be defined by the purpose of our actions, the wisdom of our decisions and the integrity of our lives. Wherever you go in the country and in the world, the fact that you are a Trinitian will open more opportunities for you, and make you partakers of privilege, authority and responsibilities of leadership and high office. As such, we will not merely be the heirs of the future, but as part of its workforce, priests, artists, journalists, as voting citizens and leaders of a country and of the world, we will actively shape the future of nations, the destiny of humanity, the conservation of forests, the preservation of species, the course of rivers and even sea level.

I invite you to consider the answer to my question “What is Trinity today?” in light of how you and I will make manifest Trinity in the world and future we are called to lead. Trinity of yesterday belonged to those who have passed before us and the Trinity of tomorrow belongs to those who are yet to come. Today, Trinity is you and me. David Paynter’s masterpieces on the cold and motionless granite walls of our Chapel, speak to us compellingly through the ages, in a timeless and wordless language, about what Trinitians ought to be. Yet today, you and I are called to living paintings of the mission and values of Trinity in the world we inhabit, and are called to lead.

Ten years on, as we remember and celebrate how Trinity has enriched our lives, we of the batch of 2000 share a hope and a fervent wish that the greatness of our school may not be measured by what we achieve in a season, or in a year, but in how well we mould the leaders of each generation and how well we lead our nation and the world by example. We need to have the humility and courage to ask ourselves, without fear of what the answer might be, whether we are still able to inspire the new generations and provide opportunities for them to be the best they can be. We need to remember to set our goals high, and make sure that our vision is clear and our will is strong, to serve with humility.

Respice Finem!

Thank you all very much.

Home is where the heart is

Glimpse, originally uploaded by halwis.

Melbourne, Australia (20th May) - My sleepy eyes have outdone the conscientious alarm by thirty minutes. I lie awake grudgingly, because sleep would elude me for at least another 24 hours. Emboldened by a hot shower, I am over confident about my ability to forego the mandated quota of sleep. While going through a mental checklist of what I have packed, I sense a hint of nostalgia when I accidentally catch a glimpse outside my bedroom window, of two garden recliners in an overgrown backyard. I feel compelled to frame the sight with my camera and end up snapping a few shots of my books including one that still loiters on my table – kept out of the shelves because of its enticing epilogue which I had read many times over even though I had finished reading the book the previous week.

The ride to the airport with Suraj (on board faithful old ‘Berta’) is held up by a pile-up on the freeway. I realise we’ve come too far to get to an alternate route and it makes me a bit nervous for not having allowed much time for the unexpected. The delay means however that I waste no time loitering in the Duty-Free shops or wondering about impatiently for a boarding call. I secretly commend a nameless security officer at the emigration counter whose act and candid talk hides all implicit suspicions of any terrorist inclinations I may have. While subjecting me to my first ever body check in Australia in nearly seven years, he asks me where my destination is and perhaps having read my thoughts, tries to console me with the suggestion that I would have enough time to rest and sleep during the flight. I tell him in all honesty, that I like flying too much, to waste that time on sleep. Perhaps he cared enough to know.

I had diligently reserved a window seat to enjoy the sights, of mountain bridges that link the flat Earth to lofty clouds and giant vessels crawling feebly but unintimidated, across the vastness of the sea. Even though I fly more often now, The wonder of human flight and the sights it afford have not yet lost their ability to delight me.

I descend on an escalator to the departure lounge and come face to face with the behemoth that would part the clouds to take me over arid desert, oceans, rivers and rain forests, dwarfed mountain peaks and scenic valleys, on my way to a place I long to see. Sparing only a few minutes to snap a few shots of the aircraft which is has not yet dislodged itself from my imagination of the future to become part of the present reality. The years have gone by too fast and there is so much left for me to learn to believe - just to catch up to the present moment.

I notice slanted markings on the tarmac spelling out “Home”. As I take my seat on the upper deck, the usual expectations and thrill associated with ‘going home’ evades me even in my attempts to will it into being. ‘Home’ is a name of a place I find increasingly difficult to recognise or define anymore. I don’t know whether I am leaving home or going home. It seems I am leaving home to go home because I no longer have a single place I can naively call ‘home’. There is not one place where I can swear my allegiance to without forsaking another or a narrow patriotism that I can focus on one place that falls within any given set of lines on a political map of the world.

I am yet to set out on the long and arduous journey both intellectually and also in terms of worldly experience, to be able to present my credentials as a citizen of the world. My worldview is not broad or tempered by many travels, but it has pierced the shell that defined me in terms of where I live. Perhaps I am simply a nomad whose sojourns have uprooted the concept of ‘home’ in his conscience.

I buckle in my seat belt and leave aside the book in my hand to try and define this journey in terms of my attachments to the place and dependence on the people at my destination, or for that matter, those that I am temporarily leaving behind.

1. Thinking Analog in a Digital World

Our digital world

We live in a digital world of our making. The pictures we see on billboards and on TV, the music we listen to, the whispers we exchange on mobile phones and the letters and words on newspapers and books we read, have at some point, been reduced to a series of on-off bits to be stored on an iPod, designed, edited and published on the Internet or to be transmitted over great distances. As we spend time in front of our TVs and computers and increasingly rely on mobile phones and social networking applications to interact with our family and friends, a significant portion of our information consumption and exchange has essentially become and exchange of abstract 'bits' of 'on' and 'off' signals representing hypothetical 'ones' and 'zeros'. Of course most of us still do talk to people face to face and can find more delight in watching the sunset on a beach. However, sound waves are made up of discrete molecules and light is made up of individual photons, which - theoretically at least - makes them digital experiences too, but that's for a later discourse.

It is the advent of computers that is widely considered to have triggered our rapid drift into the digital realm. Machines are credited - not unjustly, but rather inaccurately - for starting the 'digital revolution'. However, early in the 17th century, Francis Bacon realised that letters of the alphabet could be reduced to sequences of binary digits. Long before that, the Indian writer Pingala developed advanced binary mathematical concepts to describe prosody (poems). Binary logic as we know it today, is in many ways a tool that could not only simplify and encode numbers but distill even the most complex of our thoughts. We can take it for granted once we are familiar with how high definition video and true surround sound can confuse our senses about what's real and what's not, to enhance our experience of a movie in a deep, rather emotional level. Yet it would have taken a powerful mind for Pingala to realise how complex expressions of thought such as poetry can be encoded and derived almost mathematically using no more than two digits, in an age where there weren’t any powerful computers that could execute or demonstrate his thesis.

The equipment and technology that digitises our creative expressions and words today are based on the much older discovery of binary mathematics. The idea that any number can be represented as a sequence of one or more digits would have been apparent to ancient shepherds, but a systematic counting and arithmetic based on two digits is believed to have been first discovered by Indian mathematicians in the second century BC. It was a pioneering step in a quest spanning close to a million years; to find a deeper underlying order and logic in binary numbers. But I would like to invite you on a journey now, to decipher the more profound and mysterious duality underlying our understanding of the universe.

It is a quest that was born out of the first conscious human thought and continues to this day. Binary mathematics is the primary enabler of the present digital information and communication systems, but it is not merely the language of our machines. Our minds are also binary machines at a very fundamental level. The digital revolution was not a result of the advent of computers, but rather its cause and enabling force. The digital nature of our thoughts not only made the invention of digital machines possible, but a part of the logical evolution of our conscience - made significant by the fact that they are the first primitive examples of tools with which we have externalised our own conscience. The digital revolution actually started when we began to think... when we became sentient beings. It has merely made itself more visible as an extension of our conscience by taking the form of computers, iPods and LED TVs.

Surely, we must be a lot different from computers? Surprising though it may sound, the digital revolution precedes the invention of the computer and binary mathematics. Its origins lie buried in a time far more ancient than Pingala’s delightful insights. It started at the very dawn of human intelligence, when we first learned logic and reason; in a time immemorial. 'Yes' and 'no', 'true' and 'false', 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' - though contradictory in meaning, can only be understood as the opposite or the absence of the other because the bipolarity of our thoughts and logic is also intimately woven into our vocabulary. It is not a coincidence that these would be the first words we need to understand, when we begin to learn a new language.

Vestiges of the binary origins of our thoughts and reasoning becomes even more conspicuous if we can tune ourselves to notice an underlying duality in the way we try to understand and describe the world and our thoughts and experiences of it. The most fundamental of our perceptions and beliefs are based on juxtapositions of opposite ideas. For example, we appreciate light, relative to our experience of darkness; we revel most in happiness, when we have languished in the depths of sadness. We take for granted that what is beautiful cannot be hideous; that a good person cannot do bad things, because we are wired in our brains to treat each perceptive thought, each idea and judgement as mutually exclusive of its opposite. It seems not only the most complex of our belief systems and emotions, but our basic logic and reasoning which forms the basis of knowledge, is hinged on a set of imperceptible dualities that is made bare in our vocabulary.

This duality in the way we think and the way we form our opinions is naturally reflected in the way we reason. It is still a useful cognitive tool that has formed the foundation of our logic, mathematics and science. In this way, the present digital age can trace its evolution through the strands of primeval logic that enabled the earliest human self conscience that we can still relate to our origins. Perhaps we are still infants in the long path to truly enlightened thought and reasoning, suckling on the first conscious human thought, clinging to the moment when human reasoning and intelligence was born - if ever there was such a moment. Perhaps there is a 'digital' grain in our very make up - to which our collective conscience is just waking up to?

The (beautiful) limits of being human

We human beings are remarkable in our ability to empathise and therefore to comprehend the inner thoughts and feelings of another without self experience. It suffices that one remembers how it feels to be sad or happy, to be able to share in the sadness or happiness of another. Even without memory or self experience, we have an amazing ability to imagine and therefore approach an understanding of the innermost feelings and emotions of another person.

And yet, precisely because of these wonderful gifts of empathy, memory and imagination, we will never truly understand each other; because no two memories are alike and imagination is no closer to reality than empathy is. What we are able to discover anew about each other will therefore be confined by the narrow boundaries of what we already know and the relative differences in how each of us have experienced life.

However, it is only when we are able to acknowledge the limitations of our understanding, that our hearts can be lifted from the murky waters of vanity and pride. And only love can make us abandon the safety of what we already know, and gives us the courage to venture into the knowable unknown; to be vulnerable. It is only when our hearts are lifted out of the safety of the amniotic fluid of preconception and prejudice, that we are able to see and understand another for who they are. It is through love therefore, that we strive for ever deeper and more intimate understanding of one-another. It is only through humility - that love is able to unravel our hearts, so that the spirit can roam free; to venture in search of deeper appreciation and truer discovery of ourselves, of our loved ones, and of the beauty and mystery of the world around us.