Our Fundamental Nature…
Last Updated on Tuesday, 18 August 2009 19:32 Written by remg Tuesday, 18 August 2009 02:38
While thinking about our life and our existential conflicts a question broke into my mind: What is our Fundamental Nature?
I began to think what our essence is; that thing that make us special over the other species, what make us unique as human beings (in general: Homo Sapiens).
I started to wonder about what the people should say about it according to their field of expertise.
- A biologist would probably say that the nature of the human being lies in our Brain and all the functions and processes that it involves, like emotions, feelings, pain, etc. The basis for his argument would be Darwin’s evolution and Natural Selection (Origin of Species), following the idea that our path of evolution was to develop a powerful brain, just like the jaguar developed muscular strength in their legs to run fast, or birds developed wings to fly, or some insects developed poison to protect themselves.
- A Psychologist would say that our nature is our social behavior, the ability to connect to other people, care about them or hate them. They would agree with the Biologist that our brain is important, but they would think that our nature is given by the consequences of having a brain, not the brain per se (by itself)
- A Minister or Priest would say (according to they religion) that life the way we know it´s just a stage, or a preparation to a higher level of spiritual life, regardless if its heaven or nirvana, Jesus, Ala or Budha. According to them we are different from the other animals and our actions in this physical life would affect our next spiritual life.
- A Philosopher would throw Shakespeare”s Hamlet at us (to be or not to be), he would go on and on about existentialism, maybe Unamuno or Sartre, even Heidegger. As always surrounded by the nostalgia and melancholy of knowing that we are far to know the absolute truth of our reason to live, knowing that everything is relative and subjective.
- An Astronomer or a Physicist would try to explain to us Einstein’s General Relativity, the Big Bang Theory, the String theory and some of Quantum mechanics, just to realize that even with all those equations and knowledge we are far to discover all the things that exists in the Universe. So with a little bit of sadness he would answer: we are just a cosmic coincidence, just some particles that came together and learn to subsist.
After that, I tried to think, what I would say if someone asked me that. The only answer I could come up with is:
Our nature is being selfish, ungrateful, stupid, insatiable and mercenaries. I just needed a second to take a look to our history, the wars (we are the only species that kill for joy), the human rights violations, the hunger, the poverty, the destruction of our planet, the fights for power and money, the indifference. It’s pathetic that people are more interested in the life of a celebrity than working together to be able to discover the universe. People is only looking for their individual good, it’s irrelevant for them if people are starving in Africa, as long they have warm food in their tables. We don’t care about finding a greatest good, is all about gaining more power and money. It’s all about to fit other people’s expectations.
That is our nature... but…
A shine in the dark appears when I think about the power of the human mind, that, in the context of the things that we have done terrible, gave us the ability to enjoy the voice of Luciano Pavarotti (il primo tenore), the Poems of Neruda, Nervo, Baudelaire, the Paintings of Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh or Moliere, the Sculpture of Rodin or Rafael, The Literature from Geothe, Shakespeare and Cervantes, the Architecture of Gaudi or the Ancient civilizations (Aztecas, Mayas, Incas, Romans, Greeks, Egyptian), the Sonatas and Symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi, the operas from Verdi, Puccini and Leoncavallo, the theories of Einstein, Pasteur, Lister and Maxwel.
And then the little actions like: when you feel bad about other people sadness, when you cry for someone you care about, when you love blindly, when you discover that your life is meaningless without the person you love, when you work every day to give your family the things they disserve… transcend to make us better.
As a conclusion, our nature is a duality between the good and evil. Unfortunately it seems that the bad things are winning so far. What a shame. If we could use our potential to try to be better… we could… do anything!
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