A question, heard often

Why isn't human society a peaceful one?

I agree, many are seized of this issue. But, all are looking at this, either totally from a material viewpoint, where we end up instituting various measures linked to the essentials of living, or fully from a spiritual angle, where we add to the imponderables of life. Naturally, each answer we get, adds to the existing commotion, and for quelling which, we turn to another essential, whether real or abstract. And the cycle goes on. 

As you can see, human life continues to grow in complexity.

I think we need to make a break, and address just Four Issues specific to humans.

One: an odd couple. Abstraction, which is a unique part of the human, while missing in all other forms of life, and the commotion that follows every instance of mating, which is missing in humans but present in all other forms of life. It seems, both are mutually exclusive. Is it then possible that abstraction evolved as a remedy for the post mating violence, which, given the fact that humans have a long mating season lasting all twelve months a year, would have been posing a serious problem to the early humans. Shouldn't we rein it?

Two: what we easily notice. Humans sport a certain element of unease, irrespective of one's condition or circumstances. In fact, much, or rather all of our philosophy, from sophism to existentialism, or communism, is nothing but an effort to appreciate and explain this unease, which causes our society to be always in a state of strife. Isn't it possible that this unease is a direct result of a mismatch between, what we learn and, what actually we do? As mentioned in many of my 'hubs', our current and historical styles of learning do not lead to a synchrony between what we learn, and where our natural interest or leaning lie. Whereas, it is so, for all other forms of life. Shouldn't we recast education?

Three: not an easy one at all. It is about our ideals, which the French revolution popularized. Namely, liberty, equality, and fraternity. All forms of life other than human, revel on liberty, and fraternity. Man seems to have discarded both, and chose to live as a society that thrives on demarcations based on the very same ones. At the same time, man is embracing with all his earnestness, equality, an unnatural ideal. As a result of which man is constantly ruffling feathers, both of mother nature, and of one's own nature. Shouldn't we reconsider our ideals?

Four: it escapes all attempts of an explanation. The more rational and clear we are, when dealing with material objects and the associated phenomena, the less bothered we are about any of those, when dealing with the objects of our imagination, entities like religion, customs, ceremonies, gods or demons. And the more eager, we are, to expose every secret, hidden in, say the earth, or the planets, the less inclined we are, to acknowledge the super natural powers or functions as rather obscure, let alone attempting to make it clear. Shouldn't we think further?

Peace, and answer to all the imponderables of life, is hiding here.

The End of The Rational

As I propose in my book, The Unsure Male, we are slowly heading into the age of the irrational. I was not at all comfortable with this thought, and perhaps nobody else too will be, since I could not show a reason, a force that can spark it. (My book tries to make it clear, how, once one takes a leaning, towards the irrational, or to the rational, certain aspects of life come to fore, encouraging one to go to the extremes of whatever is of interest currently.)

I examined this again, with the idea of finding a spark..

God - A Review

What is god? How did such an idea become part of human life? What does it actually do? What is its future?

Why Unrest?

In my hub ‘why is there unrest’, I said that beliefs make the human society a turbulent one. One way to confront this situation is to deem all such inputs as mental germs, accepting one, only if it is proved harmless. Another hub, ‘A-New-Approach-to-Mental-Health’, gave an account of it, and suggested a remedy. 

Still another remedy, a more permanent one, is also a fairly simple one. Be flexible, especially with the abstract tenets, every society is abundant with. 

What Use, the Past?

What can we do with the past. And, what are we doing with the past? When it comes to the inanimate, or it is about living beings other than humans, we are quite rational and thoughtful in learning from the past to make a better future. Whereas, when it comes to ourselves, we are not so. Isn't there room for a rethink?

Why Worry?

Should there be Worry?

There exists scope to re-examine all that is associated primarily with human life, the arguments presented in my blog entry ‘Is human a complex life?’, say. Let me have close look at worry, something widely accepted as universal, as far as the human race go.

What is worry? If something is associated with our lives, it should be serving a purpose. I therefore think, worry originated as a mental attempt, or a reminder to it, to confront, or avoid, a threat. For the early humans, it would have been a vital part of survival. For example, one worried about a danger in hiding would have been moving around better equipped and with greater care. And if, say a wild animal appeared, since the worry would have been keeping such one’s reflexes sharp, quite appropriate steps would have followed. (The people with such a genetic make up have a greater chance of survival, making worry more widespread, as generations go!)

Over time, worry would have got cemented as a part of human character, each generation celebrating it as a unique facet of the human. Though the original reason for institution of the same would have got lost on the way, as generations went by, worry continues to remain an integral part of the human, thanks to the persistent nature of things. (Which is understandable, for even in this age of language and writing, it is not very easy to get rid of crazy ideas from the past or prevent genuine ones from fading to oblivion)

Thus, as we continued to overcome the dangers, the earlier days posed, the propensity to worry kept on looking for new outlets. As a result, worry has become a part of human life, though no other form is affected by it. Even if we take certain peculiar expression seen among other species as those of anguish, there is no instance of such expressions causing disruption to any activity of life.

But my feeling is that we need not consider worry as a specific issue and prevent manifestations of its volatile nature. In which case, it will occur at diminishing intervals as the need for reflexive reactions dwindle, while human life progress towards the better.