Thus, when faced with the choice between being nothing without hardship and something with challenges, the latter almost proves rewarding. This fact, nevertheless, barely absolves the oppressive segments of their culpability for keeping people underprivileged by design in societies like ours.
Had the challenges been insurmountable, the individuals and societies in lower socio-economic strata would never have risen to fame and success. Therefore, far from stifling progress, constraints can act as a forge where creativity, collaboration and resilience converge to spark transformative breakthroughs that ultimately benefit everyone, provided they are approached with sincerity and empathy.
Some might dismiss such achievements as mere improvisation for deviating from tradition; in reality, it is a form of restrained success and innovation — economical and subtly refined.
History testifies that despite restrictive conventions and resource constraints, persistent efforts have repeatedly navigated barriers, proving that constraints often fuel creativity and resilience, rather than inevitably stifling potential.
From lifesaving vaccines to quantum leaps in physics, the most profound advancements are made not in the absence but in the presence of constraints. For instance, in science and technology, scarcity often ignites unprecedented ingenuity.
The Apollo 13 crisis — a life-threatening oxygen tank failure – transformed engineers into improvisational artists, who crafted a carbon dioxide filter from spare parts under crushing time pressure.
Also, constraints dissolve disciplinary silos, fostering collaboration where diverse perspectives collide. Biomimicry exemplifies this: engineers, architects and materials scientists mimic nature’s billion-year R&D lab — such as kingfisher-inspired bullet train designs — to solve modern challenges in aerodynamics and sustainability.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic compressed decades of vaccine research into months, as global urgency propelled mRNA technology from theoretical promise to lifesaving reality.
Meanwhile, the success and prominence achieved despite constraints across time and space by Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Edison, JK Rowling, Abraham de Moivre, Ibn Khaldun, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X and others manifest this. Had they been in Pakistan today, most of them would have been rewarded with any of these ironic accolades: treason, heresy, systematic failures, exiles and penury.
These manifestations, among others across the world, reveal a reality: most constraints are not roadblocks (not necessarily in our society) but compasses, directing us toward uncharted territories of ingenuity. In this light, limitations act as humanity’s quiet collaborators in exploration and achievement — worthy of embracing and venturing into.
However, much like limitations inherent in a barrier’s potential, the argument for confronting systemic barriers also faces overwhelming limitations in societies like ours, where the system mostly rewards allegiance, flattery, complicity, hypocrisy, connections and money. One might question: why do the destitute always inherit the hard life as wages for the elite’s sins?
In other words, why must the poor suffer for the success or rewards that others attain with ease? Though debatable, one of the answers is that the genuine efforts of people and the labour of the working class fund the effortless and lavish lives of the powerful, who have forcibly encroached upon people’s fates and potential fortunes for over three-quarters of a century in our country.
And what would you call the erstwhile destitute lot who defiantly overcame hardships and succeeded, only to join the ranks of those who erect barriers and ultimately become a constraint for the have-nots?