Keep returning to where it all begins

The world is made up of myriad forms but the source of it all is one.

Building this awareness is the key to simplifying our lives & work.

This understanding can also be a source of great creativity.

Understading that all things negative(problems) & positive(solution) have a common source is critical to gaining control over our problems and to unlocking of our creativity.

Keep returning to the source.

Keep returning to where it all begins.

We need to redesign almost everything for life in the 21st Century

I get the idea as I pick my tooth brush up this morning. I'll be discarding this tooth brush in a matter of few days. It already seems like I have used it beyond its effective life span. But then I will be discarding the the whole tooth brush when it's only the bristles that need to be replaced. The rest of the tooth brush (the handle etc.) is actually just as it was when I first bought it some weeks ago. The point is a lot of the 'things' that we buy and use today were designed at a time when the constraint on resources was not a factor requiring much consideration. These 'things' have become misfits in today's world.

Many a successful innovations since the start of the industrial revolution (and even before) need now to be replaced. Indeed the success of the Industrial revolution itself might have hastened the need to discard them. Improved purchasing power (due to cheaper manufacturing and financial innovation), spreading prosperity (due to expanding trade) and population growth (on the back of better health care) have ensured a continuous growth in the demand for these innovations. But then these innovations were never designed with the impact of very large scale usage in mind. Take for example the personal Automobiles, designed for user convenience & improved quality of life, the falling costs and rising purchasing capacity have resulted in such wide spread use of this mode of transport that it now is negatively impacting the quality of life (not just of the bystanders but the owners themselves).

Having stretched material supply to exhaution, we now need new innovations that are resource efficient, sustainable, and renewable. The economics of scale itself might be on its way out. So also the life styles of the 20th century.

The design difference

General Motors' Chevrolet Volt electric car could get 230 mpg in city driving, making it the first American vehicle to achieve triple-digit fuel economy if that figure is confirmed by federal regulators.

Volt's fuel efficiency in the city would be four times more than the popular Toyota Prius hybrid, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S. If drivers operate the Volt for less than 40 miles, in theory, they could do so without using a drop of gasoline.

Such gains usually cannot come from optimizing, they are the result of some fundamental Design changes.

Unlike the Prius and other traditional hybrids, the Volt is powered by an ELECTRIC MOTOR and a battery pack with a 40-mile range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles.

Hybrids like Toyota's Prius on the other hand use a small INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE combined with a high-powered battery to boost fuel efficiency.

Use of the electric motor as the prime driver probably reduces the number of moving parts as the power can be transmitted over the wire (instead of a mechanical power train) resulting in considerable savings on moving parts that are not really needed to move the vehicle around.