Evolution

Today, I seem to have fallen into questioning some of the more simplistic ways of the world (not a huge stretch for me), and yes, I'm probably going to come off as some sort of liberal, wooey wacko, but yet, the question on my mind seems worth pondering...

As a species, where does humankind aspire to go? What do we really want to become?

Of course, the more jaded me believes that the only thing we aspire to is personal wealth. One could certainly argue that humanity is driven by greed. And there are gobs of human behaviorists that will clearly state that we are driven by certain reptilian needs i.e. survival, procreation, etc., etc., but clearly, there must be some sort of evolutionary short circuit in our neural networks, as our instinctual needs have mushroomed into a pathological desire to acquire things. The net result of all this is simple. Humanity, as a tribe, couldn't save it's own ass, because, for every burning man pretender, for every celibate yogi (fucking boy or girl), for every anti-gay rights fudgepacker, for every man, woman and child...there is some specious explanation as to why they are not who they purport to be. Our political systems are entirely based on image and wealth, and the only less likely place to find the truth (outside the political arena) is within our own hearts. A huge percentage of the human species can justify murder and war on 'moral' grounds. I, personally, find it sickening that the very people who shriek about the moral turpitude of other nations...who send the young people of this country off to fight wars in the name of patriotism, or to eradicate some make-believe threat, are the same fucking people who want to help the wounded soldier, the PTSD victim, the scarred soldiers that are only scarred because of someone else's self-interest. And of course, this is gonna send me off on some unrelated tangent i.e. Why are there countries? Why do we have national interests? Isn't what's good for one good for all? I mean the entire middle east conflict comes down to who gets the water. I'm pretty sure we all need water. Is it so scarce that we need to fight over it? (OK, so this entire rant was from the jaded me).

The simple fact is, that if we judge ourselves as a species, we suck. We can't even step out of our self-interest cocoons long enough to talk to a stranger, to smile back at someone smiling at us, unless we perceive some personal benefit. We don't like each other, and we never have. We prefer the feel of dollars in our wallets over the touch of another human. We would rather engage with an excel spreadsheet than another human being. Thousands of us can hear the screams of a rape victim outside our open windows, and yet, NO ONE calls the police. 'It's not my problem', should be the mantra for humankind. We all claim to value deeds over words, yet we fail to do anything.

Now this isn't to say that there aren't people who do good things. Of course there are, but it is wrapped in the package that we have all bought into...it is part of the same system...it is the anti-self-interest movement within the self-interest movement...it is what makes the global/local slogan so farcical. By now, I'm sure there are many of you chanting, "That's the way of the world, Fallen Angel...grow up", and my response to that (after the initial 'fuck you') is that the way of the world is wrong. It may be the way it has always been, but that doesn't mean that's the way it has to be.

It seems to me that we have created a world where smaller is better. We all seem to strive toward shrinking our world. Hence, the failure of most marriages. We enter into these unions believing they are safe and secure, and oh, the heartbreak we all feel when that doesn't prove to be the case. The fact is, safe and secure doesn't exist in smaller...it exists only in bigger...more inclusive. OK, so you can look at the dynamic of friendship then. We do surround ourselves with friends. But how are they different than anyone else? The fact is that burning man folks only hug other burning man folks. They're not out hugging dyed-in-the-wool republicans, unless they're too stoned to notice. We would all be better off, as a global tribe, if, instead of hating her, we hugged the teenage girl with the dynamite strapped to her chest...if we could only understand that her sadness is the same as ours...that all the bad things that have entered her life, have entered ours in one guise or another.

There is hope. We always have hope. If we could learn that TRUTH supercedes our individual truths...that doing the RIGHT thing is always the right thing to do...that we do suck as a species and we don't have to...well, then a new day might just dawn.