Civilization as it were has gone through a series of development/upgrades over time. According to Google,
civilization can be defined as the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered the most advanced.
In simple terms, civilization is how and what your society has in its armour in the present time which might be a little better than or an upgrade to a relative (past) environment. That is to say, the concept of being civilised is different by generation - Millennials, Gen X, Y or Z . This also implies that the concept will always evolve over time.
Relative to this discourse, and after some inner deliberation within myself, one thing I am grateful for about the current civilisation I am presently in is that of transportation.
Transportation: A Pro
Taking a trip back in time, when I was in primary school I was able to get myself down to school with little to no need for a guardian to accompany me to school which wasn't that far from home. Every day I trekked from home to school. Getting into secondary school which was farther from home, I had to board public transport to and fro. Amidst school boys who would sometimes spend their transport fare on sweets and resort to trekking the distance, I was not always like that though. I had an unwritten rule in my mind, never to spend my fare for what it was not meant for. However, against the popular habit, I don’t trek even when I do not have money or have somehow had to let go of my fare; I trek even when I have money.
If not for the advent of technology which brought about vehicles which we used to cover distances to school, work etc., maybe a lot of us might not even be able to attend school that was far away. I remember my late grandma telling me that when she used to come to sell her farm produce in Ibadan all the way from Ondo state, it took a week on foot. Who would try that at this age and time? Even when the state of insecurity seems to have worsened that then.
Who could have said that in a matter of years, one could board a vehicle and sit comfortably in it, a self-driving car at that? The rate of safety precautions, systems and comfortability put into these systems is constantly being upped by the day.
Recently, the governor of Lagos state unveiled the Blue Rail system to serve about 500,000 passengers per day in a bid to decongest the roads of vehicles and allow access to surrounds without breaking the bank. Ceteris Paribus, there will never be a traffic jam on the railway, so the common man can go around the state many times a day in just some record time.
As a person who is beginning to love travelling as long as I do not see any traffic jam, I feel the latest developments in the transport sector is what can sustain my newly found passion. The advent of aeroplanes, ferries, cable networks and so on really helped humans reach places which may not have been easily accessible.
Not Being Civilized
On the other hand, civilization has caused the recent generation, especially in Nigeria to lose touch with their history and morals. In the name of being civilised, we tend to copy the way of life of those alien to our background. In the end, the ‘copied’ culture has never favoured us because we are who we are because of where we came from.
I understand everyone has the right to their decisions but why can’t we stay with what has been ours and develop it? Those we copy are constantly improving theirs while we hold on and feast on the archaic ones and still do not grow on/in them.
All in all, civilisation is an entity that will always undergo (new) developments over the years. Hence, we all need to just appreciate the moments in which we are present while also catching up to survive daily.
