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One day, Plato asked Socrates, his teacher and mentor, "What is love?"

Socrates replied, "Plato, take a walk through the wheat field nearby. Without turning back, walk forward, and pick the most magnificent stalk of wheat you can find. However, you are allowed to pick only one."

Plato followed Socrates' instructions, confident that he would find the best stalk of wheat in the field. Before long though, he returned empty-handed. Socrates asked, "Why have you picked nothing?" Plato replied, "I had found the most magnificent stalk of wheat as soon as I walked into the field, but since I was only allowed one pick, and I could not turn back, I thought I could find a better one further ahead. However, I could not find a better one as I kept searching, so I returned with none."

"And that is love," said Socrates.

Some days later, Plato asked Socrates another question. "What is marriage," he asked. Socrates answered: "Go to the woods, and as before, without turning back, bring me back the best and strongest tree in the forest. Again, you're only allowed to choose one, so choose wisely."

Plato walked through the woods, and returned soon after with a tree. However, the tree was not strong nor tall. Socrates asked him, "Is this the best tree in the forest?" Plato answered, "No, but I didn't want to return empty handed like last time, and while I'm sure there are better trees in the forest, I felt I could not afford to miss the opportunity at this tree."

"And that is marriage," said Socrates.

On yet another day, Plato asked, "What is an affair?" Socrates answered, in his usual way, "Head to the woods, and look for the most beautiful flower. This time, you're allowed to look wherever you want, and you can retrace your steps if you must." Plato, given these instructions, went into the woods full of confidence. In a short time, he had found the most beautiful, most colorful blooming flower in the forest, and picked it out of the soil for his return. As he returned, however, the flower began to wilt. When he arrived, Socrates asked, "Is this the most beautiful flower in the forest?" Plato answered, "Yes, I discovered this most beautiful of flowers, but as I returned, the flower began to lose its color and beauty."

"And that, is an affair," said Socrates.

Now older and wiser, Plato asked Socrates once more, "What is life?" Socrates pondered for a moment, and told Plato, "As before, go to the woods, and find the most beautiful flower there is. You can go anywhere, and pick as many as you want." Remembering all his previous experiences, Plato walked into the woods again. But after three days and three nights, he had still not returned. Socrates, with a bit of concern, went out in search of Plato. Before long, Socrates had found him, in a makeshift camp that Plato had set up. He asked Plato, "Have you found the most beautiful of flowers?" Plato pointed to a flower right next to his camp site, and said, "That is the most beautiful flower in the forest." Socrates inquired, "Why have you not picked it yet?" Plato answered thoughtfully, "If I pick it, it would wither like the last one. But even if I don't pick it, it will wither and die sooner or later. So while it is in full bloom, I will live beside it, admiring it from here. When it finally wilts, I will look for the next most beautiful flower."

Socrates took this in, and said, "Now you understand the essence of life."

"We are turning our backs on the very survival mechanism that got our species here in the first place."

"We are air - everything we do to the air, we do directly to ourselves."

"There is no crisis of the environment - the crisis is us."

"Economy and ecology are from the same root word meaning home ... it is time to put 'eco' back into economics."

"Economists seem to think that the economy can grow forever ... nothing can grow forever."

Yesterday, amidst a rather empty convocation hall, I attended the Engineering Science overture lecture for the 2007 Winter Term, themed "Systems and States". Giving the lecture was one Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. The director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and an MIT graduate, Mr. Homer-Dixon's lecture for the day had a sobering message. By all scientific accounts, modern human civilization is heading towards collapse in many different directions. The time to act against it is now. Yes, climate change is occurring. Yes, population growth is at an unprecedented high. Yes, energy production is slowing down. There are numerous factual evidences that support these phenomena. It's happening. Now.

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Not too long ago, I was contemplating what I would do after high school. For me, there was almost no doubt I was going to be doing something science-related. Being practical, I chose to study engineering rather than purely theoretical science. I wanted to do something with knowledge. Learning is exhilerating, but alone, it serves no greater purpose.

Something else had always been troubling me for a while. Why aren't the smartest people in the world making the decisions about the world?

Our world, for the large part, is run by the great democratic political machines of industrialized western nations. Yet this same political machine regularly fails at recognizing what I feel are the most important issues of today - the human impact to environment.

Now, I've never called myself a tree-hugger, or anything of the sort. I don't have that sense of activism. But, I do maintain that many governments of today seem only to be concerned, with great hubris, about their own infinite 'economic' growth.

I am fascinated by politics. I read the newspaper regularly, just to catch up on the latest political scoop. I am fascinated, by the way politicians continue to sidestep real and important issues, with great deftness of words. Politics, to me, is nothing more than a play on words with some basic economic management.

So I figured long ago, that democracy is broken. Sure, if you ask me now, I'll tell you that I'll go out to vote, but for me, the impact of government is too slow, and too little. There are things going wrong with the world today, and political manuevering is not the way to solve it.

I was shocked, one day, about a year ago, to learn that there were still a great many important international figures who contest the notion of global warming, or even climate change. (Here's a list of some: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_sceptics) It shouldn't take so much work to convince the public. And it sure as hell shouldn't be so hard to realize how it's bad for the Earth.

With my faith in politics and the media shaken, I resorted to the conclusion that the only way to get things done is to do things yourself. Of course, it's a long road, and it's hard to see where to begin on something so monumental.

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Professor Homer-Dixon listed the problems, and offered a great many solutions. He articulated what I had been thinking, unconsciously and in abstract. But now I see it more clearly.

As an engineer, in the 21st century, these problems will be up to us to solve. So we can avoid a catastrophe in the future (near or far). Will we be able to engineer ourselves out of this problem? Well, we can only try and see now.