A bogus urban legend or not, the theory that we only use 10 percent of our brain’s capacity is gaining some personal traction with me.

And let this second sentence serve as a warning, fair reader, that yes, I am about to embark on the underlying theme found within all my writing over the past few years: we need to change or risk becoming the worst generation in humanity’s history.

It’s a bold statement, to be sure. And it is merely conjecture, but still, humor me and take a look around you.

What do you see?

I see a world utterly obsessed with filth and stirring the pot; I see an era in which we are more self-involved than at any point in human history. Mix those together and you get one helluva hangover when the party’s over.

In “Noah”, the biblical epic starring Russell Crowe, humanity is depicted as having reached a breaking point with its creator. By killing, stealing, destroying the world of its natural order as the creator intended, Crowe’s Noah is convinced that the world is meant to be washed clean of its filth.

So if Tabul-Cain was bad for putting his needs before others and eating the flesh of creatures placed on Earth by the creator to serve a certain purpose, where does that rank us?

We, of our selfies, nuclear war and material obsessions. We, of our indulgence, greed and corruption. We, of our sick and twisted ability to manipulate, judge and condemn.

It seems as though we are simply out to get one another, to catch someone and make them twist in the wind. We forward e-mails, directly quote them and use people’s words out of context and to our advantage, all in an attempt to make them feel pain, regret, agony or remorse.

Our emotions are out of control and we plaster them for the world to see.

What do you feel?

See, no matter if you believe in evolution or creation, both parties should be worried. We are either angering the creator or we are destroying the ecological systems which hold nature together.

We verbally abuse family, friends and random strangers through social media – as if it is our place, our right. We share space, but we don’t share a willingness to make this world any better for the future.

Are the best days of the United States behind us? Will we become a historical footnote like the Roman Empire?

These questions cannot be answered in the present, only at some unknown future point and with a proper evaluation period – though it should be noted that currently, more than 52 percent of Americans think our best days are behind us. This pessimism, shockingly, has happened very few times since Rasmussen Reports began taking the poll.

Nonetheless, these questions remain the backbone of a larger proposition: what are we doing with what we’ve been given? How are we handling the world after those that came before us worked so hard to get us to this point?

The misconception comes from believing the world was a better place in the past. It was not – but it was filled with generally better people, who nominally shared a wholly different mindset than we do.

The point was to progress, to advance, and to set the table for the future generations. We advance in terms of technology, but there seems to be a correlation that with more technology, the more introverted, self-serving and self-seeking we become.

In “Lucy” they discuss this specifically, albeit as a general theory in the context of the film’s plot. We either adapt to our likable surroundings in search of immortality, or we reproduce in hopes of passing on what we have learned to future generations.

What are we passing down?

Cell phones? Text messages? Candy Crush?

We went to the moon a few times and we’re so busy with this stuff we cannot afford the time, energy or investment to go back? For the past 40 years? What about Mars, or other places in the galaxy? We can pump out $100 million prequel and sequel movie budgets but we can’t work on the stuff that matters a bit more?

When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.  

We’ve got lawmakers wasting taxpayer time and money on the NCAA and the Washington, D.C. football team nickname? As valid and rational as the conversations about those topics may be, I’d prefer to wait until we’ve got world peace or eradicated hunger before delving into those matters.

We cannot prioritize because we do not know what our priorities are – and we think we should care about things, so we act like we do as long as we need to in order to convince others we find it important as well.

Case in point, let’s look at NASA and the Apollo program again. We didn’t go back for the simple reason that we could figure out a way to get there, but never knew what to do next. We talked of colonization and moving on to other exploration, but public sentiment waned from shortly after our giant leap for mankind.

We now write the history of the importance of this event. The rhetoric of the importance of math and science rings true in our current educational state, yet misrepresents that period of time completely. After our awe-inspiring accomplishments in both landing on the moon and bringing back Apollo 13, nothing really changed.

As others have argued, including this article, the age of Apollo ended due to a number of factors – money, the Cold War, shifting interests, war and social issues – but there was more to it: we just didn’t care as a society about what the program symbolized.

Science, technology, the future, progress, where man could go and where it might need to mattered little compared to other things we’d deemed more important by the 1970s.

This has not really changed. There is a reason we don’t have Walt Disney’s actual Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow in Florida, or flying cars or a colony on the moon.

We stopped dreaming, stopped caring and stopped doing the things that facilitated progress. Our math and science scores are not good – perhaps because all we do is sit around and argue about what a waste of time NASA was and devalue the jobs that require those subjects the most. But by all means, let’s talk about Sharknado some more.

Our vocabulary and grammar are poor because we’re producing novels about BDSM and vampires. We are texting emojis instead of actual words. The era of “The Great Gatsby” this is not.

Ever heard the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like they used to?” and dismissed it as nostalgia? Well, it is not, in so many ways. We do not do us like we used to. We do not make cars like we used to, or books, or buildings or people. We do not do family meals like we used to, Sundays, schedules and vacations. We do not do life as we used to.

We work too much, party too much and wonder why our lives fill devoid of purpose and meaning. We complain about how people do not work together for the betterment of society and then spy on them. Why would we want our best and brightest working for or with the government? The government doesn’t trust the government – and maybe it never has, but know we can track e-mails and phone records to prove it with our own surveillance.

We only have ourselves to blame because we constantly and consistently self-promote that which matters to us.

If you find music reflective of society, for example, fine. Do me a favor and look at your playlist. Listen to the lyrics. Kei$ha? Pit Bull? Moping, weeping alt songs? Another drunken country tune? Miley Cryus? Death Metal?

Eric Clapton could make you feel it – from Layla to Bell Bottom Blues to Tears in Heaven to Wonderful Tonight – emotive, sweeping, real. And he wasn’t the only one. Now, I mean…just…wow. There is taste in music and then there is understanding what should be a song and what is drivel filled jibberish.

What do you hear? What do you see? What do you feel?

How about what you believe?

A story yesterday indicated that perhaps Coach Herman Boone from “Remember the Titans” is not quite as his character is depicted. Not a huge deal, seeing as how movies about true stories just embellished or changed to fit a Hollywood narrative. Until you find out that Boone himself is helping to pass along this propaganda and is somewhat rewriting his own history – and profiting wildly from it.

Whether this is all true or not is not as important as what we have permitted to influence and shape us as a culture and as a society.

In 2011, Terrelle Pryor received a five game ban from Roger Goodell and the NFL for his role at Ohio State of a scandal involving memorabilia for free tattoos. Last week, Ray Rice received a two game suspension for knocking out his fiancée.

Many bemoaned this, mostly Raven’s fans and fantasy football aficionados.  Others were angry over the apparent lack of empathy for the situation by the NFL – domestic violence is a very serious problem; this suspension does not necessarily imply that it is being treated as such.

You may not, but I care what this says about America, what it says about our culture and society. And I certainly care more about how misplaced the entire conversation is – which mainly revolves around Ray Rice and the NFL and Stephen A. Smith’s reaction – over what truly matters.

Moral judgments are fine, so long as we have a general baseline of morals to work from. We clearly do not.

After reading 1,600 words, the four of you left may be asking yourselves what NASA, Eric Clapton, Ray Rice, Herman Boone, Candy Crush, “Noah”, “Lucy” and the Washington Redskins nickname have to do with each other and how on earth they could serve as examples for our potential downfall.

And that’s just it: nothing and everything. It’s the tiny cuts and cracks that eventually lead to the rubble.

If this is the stuff that fills our minds and signifies our purpose here, then it does not matter if we are using 10 percent or 100 percent of our brain’s capacity.

Our true and maximum capabilities are shown all around us, all the time.

What we think.

What we see.

What we do.

What we hear.

What we believe.

We are the only ones culpable for maximizing our capabilities.

Now, what do you care?