المحرات - The Plough

Posted by M.M.Lotaief (Cairo, Egypt) on 30 September 2009 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.

The Human Being as a member of this planet hasn't changed much in my opinion since the dawn of history, The same things that affect us now affected our ancestors, with the exception of the acquired problems the industrial eras have left us. The Human form is affected by Disease, Something we are constantly fighting with medical research, microbiology, and infectious disease research; we have succeeded somewhat to give more people a better quality of life, something population statistics can attest to... However we are still affected by disease, epidemics, and of course death.
Socially we are the same, our nature is to group together somewhat like Hunter/gatherers, or corporate lawyers, serving first our selfish needs followed by the common good, which brings us to the next level with the formation of tribes, and competing companies. Tribes will compete for resources that make the quality of life of the tribe better but to the disadvantage of another tribe; they will fight, enslave, engulf or eradicate another tribe to secure their hold on the resource of their desire as a single UNIT, each individual working selfishly for themselves, and for the greater good of the body (the tribe) that allows them to be selfish (please remember that in this case there are levels of selfishness). Until they meet a tribe equaling them in strength, or resources, in which case they exchange part of the resources they have in excess while hiding others that may give them an advantage over the other tribe, for for a resource they can acquire from the second tribe under a treaty or an agreement by both of them. This same strategy is used today in modern economies, The individual is still selfish (hence the credit crunch), the need to eat and drink amongst other tendencies keeps us alive, our ability to find common advantages and goals groups us together against similar tribes and gives us a "Human spirit" or common conscience where we act as a unit to save the unit.
Our basic need for food and water has cemented this reliance on each other and on tribes/groups of people. This is evident if you look at any map of any continent and compare geographical data to population data.

So "Why the plough?" you may ask... This is the simplest part of it... The plough is the root of civilization. Agriculture changed everything for hunter gatherers, it shifted paradigms from survival of the best group of hunters to the cleverest group of sowers, it was the new technology in an age of brute force and injury... some would even dare to say it changed the course of human (and plant) evolution... People flocked to rivers, collected seeds, dug up the ground, and waited for a new age. All known ancient civilizations are built upon agriculture, they are close to rivers. Mesopotamia (Iraq) near Degla دجلة and the Forat فرات which also gave rise to Babylon, and allowed trade to happen in the Phonecian (Syrian, Lebanese Coast) civilization. The Pharaonic (Egyptian) Civilization, amongst numerous African civilizations sprouted along the river Nile النيل as one of the earliest known civilizations of mankind... Agriculture put an extra few dimensions to the human spirit. This picture shows how little we have changed in over 7000 years. The earth must still be ploughed to seed our food, whether the seeds are hybrids, genetically modified or untampered, we still need to plough the land, tend it, and wait, hoping that a new age will come and that the tribes resolve their differences because we are all the same.

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