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Who Are We? What's Good and What's Bad??

After I gave up superstition as the cause of things, I began to wonder who the heck we humans are. If guidance isn't really divine, then what guidance is there, really? Thinking things through had worked pretty well for me so far, so I decided to try to get to the bottom of things.

The answer follows closely after the question is openly expressed. We are animals living on the surface of the planet Earth. Like all the other living things, evolution shaped us. Actually, it shaped us so well that we came to dominate the other plants and animals and sometimes even arrogantly claim that we dominate the processes of nature itself.

The key to contentment in modern society is to find out what we are and what we are naturally motivated to do, then do that.

If it seems easy, be advised that it is not. If it seems simple, it isn’t.

What Are We?

If all living things on Earth were exactly divided into animal and plant kingdoms, then we humans would belong mostly in the animal kingdom. However, we have certain plant enzymes that are necessary to our life, consequently, we can only claim to be “mostly” in the animal kingdom.

How did we get to be the way we are?

Humans evolved to survive in an earlier environment in which we were hunters and gatherers. If we hadn’t acted the way we did, we would not have survived. Any mutations with fewer effective behaviors tended to die out.

The answer to most questions about why we do the things we do is to ask another question: “What if we hadn’t done these things?”
Why do we have the appetites we have? What if we hadn’t?
Why does fear jump-start a series of reactions? What if it hadn’t?
Why do we pursue one another sexually? What if we hadn’t?

If we hadn’t developed the way we did, we would not have survived.

In other words, if we weren’t the way we are, we wouldn’t be at all!

 

 

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