As people live their lives, and the years pass, they gain expierance by being in all kinds of situations and doing all kinds of things, and having things done to them. In ignorance and curiosity they reach out to touch the candle's flame, and they learn.
Human Beings have the amazing ability to gather all kinds of seemingly unrelated bits of information, then forming a new and correct hypothesis from them. Sometimes their conclusions are totally incorrect! Sometimes that incorrectness removes them from the gene pool. Sometimes that incorrectness not only removes the one, but also the many.
Using logic and reason, the Human attempts to come to correct conclusions. When they are very young, more often than not, their conclusion is not correct, or is partially correct. As the Human gains expierance by being in all kinds of situations and doing all kinds of things, and having things done to them for many years, and then decades, their conclusions become correct more often.
I was viewing a movie about the Roman invasion of the Celtic Isles. When Emperor Claudius met Boudica and her husband King Prasutagus They thought it kind of amusing that the Emperor of Rome was so frail. Claudius may have been frail, but the Senate must have thought his wisdom was good enough to rule an empire. Experience born of many years of doing, and living life. Then contrast is made.
The young Nero, in a hurry to grow up just like so many of us when that age, comes to a horrible conclusion. To move things along the path of his Emperorship with poison. After Claudius is out of the picture, Nero is free to do as his teenage whim will dictate. With the small amount of expierance he had gained by that time in his life, he makes some incorrect choices. Like the choice to persecute and enslave the Celts.
Perhaps that contrast can be made between the youthful experimentation in life, the gaining of expierance that youthful experimentation provides, and the wisdom gained by the decades of that expierance to the overall Human condition. After all, we Humans did emerge from animalistic barbarism. There was a time when the members of our species had set no limits on action. They could do whatever they wanted without any consequences. They did too! Just like a child.
There was a split long ago. There was a common ancestor we have with other primates on this planet. There was a time when our Human ancestors were only a few years away from that split with our primate relatives. We acted like it too! We went our way fully human, but still maintained a great deal of that primitive animalistic barbarism that worked so well throughout our evolution.
Then one fateful day, as the Humans lived their lives, and the years, decades, centuries and millennia passed, they gained expierance by being in all kinds of situations and doing all kinds of things, and having things done to them, and passing on that gained wisdom to their children. In ignorance and curiosity our primitive ancestors reached out to touch the flame, and they learned.
Things changed in a big way for Humans after that. The mastery of fire was a game changer. Any Human who had the knowledge of it had power over the others, and so too is that notion today. The power comes from a basic animalistic quality, that of fear. Humans had to overcome the fear of fire because throughout our evolution fire was a killer. An unstoppable force that could wipe out entire populations, and we knew it. The very first time a Human reached out and touched the flame, that had to be one of the greatest feats of courage in Human History. That was a decision born of true wisdom gained by the accumulation of Human experience gained through the ages, and it was correct! What our ancestors did with that newfound knowledge is another matter.
Chimps can teach us a lot about ourselves. They and we are born of a common ancestor. If you start counting heads going back through the generations and eons, you would find that your family tree meets up with a living chimpanzee's family tree. That bit of knowledge shouldn't be such a surprise, and neither should the fact that we and they acted the same one time in the remote past. We acted, reacted, lived, died and everything else the same because we were one and the same.
So like a bunch of primitive thinking Humans using animalistic barbarism as a base, chose like a selfish child to use the power of fire to get the most food, mates, whatever and etc., etc. ad infinitum. You know. Like the chimpanzee group where the pile of bananas are set. The one who can intimidate the others by whatever means will get the most bananas. Ask Nero about how many bananas he deserved while Rome burned, and people died. Ask the royalty of our planet all throughout the ages why they deserve all the bananas they get while that child starves to death. I have an idea why.
I have an idea it is human nature born of the animalistic barbarism from which we emerged! The further back in our Human history we go, the more accepted is the notion of divine rights to rule over other people. We all know where that divine right comes from. It comes from the tip of a sword made with fire. The divine fire. If that notion was more accepted as true the further back in time we go, might it be more likely that the notion of supremacy was born of the humans lack of expierance gained in having been in all kinds of situations and doing all kinds of things, and having things done to them? In ignorance and curiosity they reach out to touch the candle's flame, and they learn.
They learn but like a selfish child, or one of our primitive cousins the chimps, the Humans greedily try their best to snatch up all the bananas. They learned by touching the flame the secrets of the universe, but the secrets of self were lacking. Our Human ancestors touched the flame of the secrets of the universe so long ago, now it is time to touch the flames of our Human hearts. Can we do it?
It took such courage that day we conquered the flame it is amazing they did it. When our species thoughtfully reached out our collective hand and overcome profound fear, we found new knowledge. Now we have another fear to conquer and new knowledge to gain. The fear of each other, and the content of the Human heart. Humans have used that old animalistic barbarism for a very long time. For too long of a time. Is it any wonder Humans look upon one another with suspicion? We have earned that in full! That is the consequences of a young inexperienced species coming out of primitive animalistic barbarism. Now it may take even more courage than it took to conquer fire to conquer our fear of each other, but conquer it we must.
Lets use the wisdom of the ages, reason and logic to overcome this profound fear. We do not have to allow ourselves to live in the fear born of our animal past. We can and must evolve further. We must, with the confidence of our ancestors who so fearfully, but yet bravely and with logic and reason first touched the flames, touch the flames of the Human heart. We must reach out to each other now. We must do that now because it is required for the survival of humanity and the other life forms on this planet. It is logical and reasonable that we now reach out and conquer this old fear. We can not advance much further unless our species takes this necessary step in our evolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment