In one of the beginning pages of my second book ‘The Ein Stein S.O.S’ (eighth page to be precise), there is a famous quote printed on it –
I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
– Albert Einstein
Although in its pompous display of warfare and an inane touch of slapstick the sentence seem to have many interpretations, I can only see two main conjunctions. After all, like the balance of everything I have mentioned in the book, there is a balance here too.
First –
May be Einstein was trying to predict that although he couldn’t comprehend the future weapons of warfare, he was absolutely sure of their threats. As to say that if humankind doesn’t learn from the mistakes of the previous conflicts, there could be a severe intimidation that we could end up annihilating ourselves, thus pushing human progress back to the Stone Age where we will have to fight wars with ‘sticks and stones’.
Second –
This is the one I prefer. May be Einstein was trying to predict, almost optimistically, that the progress of humankind in the future is so advanced that warfare is almost cringed at and is treated as a thing of the past that deserve to be documented in a museum. As to say that war will be viewed as an uncivilized but also occasionally necessary action only needed in certain parts of the globe; that too only for the need of peace. May be this is when people would realize how silly and primordial warfare is and instead prefer to fight mock wars with ‘sticks and stones’ on an international scale to commemorate the history of war in a fun way. Just like a paintball gun fight. Now that could be Heaven on Earth.
This is the last sentence of the last paragraph of the last chapter in my book!!! – He was truly free…
