Fear, Death, Evolution, and the Truly Connected Society

I think it is undeniable that we humans are the most advanced species on this planet. How did we get here?

Well, before human society, as you have all heard and thought about in the first chapters of your history and biology classes, perhaps, animals have been playing a game. This game, as you well know, is called evolution, survival of the fittest, natural selection, etc. Essentially, we all fought each other for resources, our abilities to survive clashed, favorable traits were selected for through their trials in the face of normal routines of hunting and existing or sudden devastating natural disasters. As you would think, watching your National Geographic programs, this life was and is barbaric, grueling, and appeals to our baser instincts. Our species died, a lot. A lot of people in this terrifying rogue-like MMO, without medicine or phoenix downs, were left bereft of life by earth, wind, fire, water, and beast, changed into feces and fertilizer.

As participants in the society we have today, we receive this information with a figurative deep sigh of relief. Why? Because we're past that! We're safe in our developed cities filled with law enforcement and beast-chewing highways! Yup! Humanity's as connected as ever with the internet and a sense of warm community!

...In reality, the game of evolution hasn't gone anywhere. We're just in a different league now.

Let me ask you, what's the difference between spearing a buffalo in the wild and taking some aptitude test that colleges will pay attention to? performing well at your job day after day? Well, admittedly a bucketful of innards to be cleaned out of the beast, but otherwise, nothing. You are fighting to prolong your life in both cases. You miss the buffalo, you either starve or die. You fail the aptitude test, you suffer a slow death, emotionally and possibly physically. You cannot provide for yourself easily and so sink into depression and hunger. You may possess life, but it is debatable whether you are really alive.

What this realization has done to my conception of society is made me realize further that our existences here are a sort of ultimatum. It's sad, because society promises community, a warm connection between you and your fellow human beings. You do agree its sad, don't you? Because, what this amounts to really, is, "make us enough money so you can collect your share and keep on surviving long enough to do more for us." Rampant capitalism has turned much of the view of a human being from a fellow human that one can connect with on the deepest levels to essentially a beast of burden, a cog. And within this evolutionary game, if one cog works better than another, the latter is trashed. And the standards only raise higher and higher...

Pictured (for Mass Effect players): the Human Race

Now what am I calling for here in lieu of the system I have described? Well, I'm not entirely sure myself. I simply think that this deserves some thought, as it's a pretty terrible irony. I don't think that every human should be babied to the point that it resembles the right-wing stereotype of socialism, yet I think that the current way things work severely devalues the human and does not engender any form of true community. It is not unlike the Christian doctrine of original sin, in which one is born with a debt on one's head. It's not fair and it expresses clearly that this society does not value the individual, only his industry.

True community amongst human beings only arises, I say, out of recognition and true sympathy and compassion and love between one fully realized human being and another (or those who are on the road to becoming such). Something must be addressed here, or at least there should be a place for those who don't wish to participate in this quasi-family of humanity, searching instead for the real one.

The Fully Realized Human Being

Who are you?


Those three words, so simple, elegant, even haunting, when considered to their full extent. Do you ever think about this question? What makes you, you? Is it the clothes you wear or the face? The hopes and dreams you may have? The stories that make up your life? Is it something along the lines of Cogito Ergo Sum, that your ability to think and the way in which you do it define your identity? I want you to really ponder this, and let this question sink in. Think or feel about it as you enjoy some quiet time.


Now, the purpose of this blog is most certainly NOT to debate the existence or nonexistence of a god, but I feel that this is applicable. When my father died, I had a crisis of faith and eventually renounced Catholicism at the age of 7. A few years later, my mother found enough time to show my brother and I something interesting: a philosophy called Buddhism. "AH, BUT THAT IS A RELIGION!" you may say, and I would agree with you with a lot of sects of it, but there are several secular forms of Buddhism that don't require some ritualistic religious activity. I am only going to explore some concepts that I found interesting, viewing it as a secular philosophy of life.


One of the first things I heard was a rather funny irony. Paraphrasing, the book we looked through observed that so many are so eager to explore and categorize and discover things about the outside, physical world, and yet almost none wish to even attempt to do so in their own internal "spirits". I don't necessarily mean ghostie souls of any kind; I'm more referring to just the concept of the self. That question of "who am I?" was really disturbing, because of the sheer dark amorphous cloud that then seemed to be my self. How do you answer such a question at such a young age? Well, I really had no idea, and still don't, but I can tell you that it made me really wonder other things that were really personal. Perhaps the other questions I asked myself are subquestions to this overarching one. 


I had to ask myself, what do I genuinely want in this only life that I have? This question could not be answered by a mere PS2 or awesome car someday, since I thought that the book on Buddhism we read had another valid point, that such material concerns are fleeting and don't really matter in the long run. No, the answer had to be something much more permanent, ongoing, something that really resonated in the deepest reaches of my heart and soul.

Ah, the sweet smell of Fight Club philosophy

I had some ideas. Having suffered so much at my young age, at the hands of fate and other fellow children, I knew that I didn't want to see others feel alone the way I did, which was interesting, considering I was a tad anthropophobic (fearful of people) due to my diagnosis of a light case of Asperger's Syndrome, and the way that that affected me. The way I recovered from that suffering, I felt I wanted to give such solace to others who suffered similarly, which is partially the reason I'm writing this blog at all.


I began putting so much thought into such questions, that, well, I don't know if I've learned all about myself, but I think I'm definitely on that path. I'm 19 now and I can say with certainty that I have a sort of dream for the way my life should play out and am only motivated now when the things that I must do feel conducive to such an end. There's things I want to accomplish in ways that I want to accomplish them. I have ideas and dreams and my friends have their own, and sometimes ours coincide. When they do, sheer magic can happen.


Why am I talking so much about myself? Because I think that going on the path to finding out who you are and what really motivates you, all of you, is essential to finding worthwhile friends and living a full life that you can be truly proud of. It's when I find someone who is similarly minded that I feel like my faith in humanity is not ill placed.

But I want you to consider something also. Think about the people who dedicated their lives to movements that they believed in every bit of their bodies. You have Gandhi, you have Martin Luther King Jr., you have Adolph Hitler. Now I realize you may have shat your pants at that last one, justifiably with the first look. I am merely commenting on how these people, good or bad, could bring such inspiration to affect the world around them on such a massive scale. Now I believe that efforts like Hitler's should be avoided, of course, and I think that that can be done when you consider this next idea.


Imagine that every human on earth could embark and succeed, even a little, in such self discovery. Imagine what would happen if such human beings, these fully realized, fully motivated people, could get together with their fully realized people of the same mindset. Imagine what could be possible. I honestly think that if society as it stands now had never evolved, and such things stated above in this paragraph occurred, we'd be living on Mars by now. Hell, I think that the problems we have right now would be ancient history and that our hypothetical selves would be laughing at the predicaments we, in real life, are living in now.


So, in closing, I just hope you think this is something that is worth at least a bit of thought. I'll say later why I think society is at odds with the process of self discovery, as it works now.

An Introduction: Why I just can't be quiet anymore

Why hello there. If you are reading this, you're probably surfing around this website, or however random blogs are discovered, and are looking for something interesting. Well, I made this blog simply because I am an English major at the University of Florida, and I feel that I'm just too distraught with "growing up" to do so silently.

You see, to make a long story short, which I may elaborate on later someday, my father died when I was very young, and my single mom has been overworked nastily ever since I can remember. As such, a certain attitude was born in me. I have no belief in God, so this is, to me, my only life, and knowing my father's sad history, and the way that he died without being able to be there for me as I grew up, I am obsessed with the idea of trying to live a life I can be satisfied with, with someone I love, etc. This is probably my only desire, honestly, is to live happily with a wife and kids that I can be with so we can all grow and live and love together. That's it. All of it.

Whereas my father's death birthed in me this long term dream, my mother's life has birthed in me a long term fear. She works as some sort of marketing executive, unofficially working weekends and handling the jobs of many of those under her, since she feels that they can't do their own. Since I can remember, I have barely been able to see her, or really connect with her, and therefore feel rather alienated. This is the fear that combats my dream, that the need of society for me to exist as some sort of horrible cog will prevent me from seeing my wife and my children, and essentially repeat the cycle of fatherlessness that I had to endure.

and the alternative looks like this...

So essentially, I feel that my life here at the U of F is a prelude to such a future, which thus deteriorates my motivation, as the rotting of some once shining beast. It's because I think too much and because I want to love too much in this life. I believe now, based on my assessments of the fears of others, that this society is just not good for us anymore, and that, potentially, we can become "fully realized human beings," as I would like to call them and will explain, who may be able to make this world the place that so many fight for. This blog is for me to just put down my damn thoughts for once, to preach to the digital ether, and hope perhaps that one day it may be filled with empathetic faces.