Today, I shared a conversation about what seperates human beings from the rest of the animal world. Lauren, began the discussioin this way: Both humans and primates use tools to fullfill their wants, needs, and desires. If the primate's tool doesn't work, he will become frustated and overreact to the situation. A human may feel the same frustration, emotionally, but they have the capability to conceive a new idea or combine tools to rationally tackle the situation at hand. They innovate to meet the challenges of everyday life...
This is the point where humans overcome the the base struggle for survival. They have the ability to create complex systems to acheive the satisfaction of their personal needs and desires. "I may get something that I need from multiple sources to satisfy my overall desires."
I feel that it is important to note, one must be sensitive to the components of their "personal solution", especially if these sources are other human beings because these other people have their own needs and desires.
Which leds us to the next tier: Once a person has not only personal stability achieved through their construct, but also posseses an awareness of others, feeling empathy, i.e. handling their tools with care or understanding and respecting the drives, needs, and desires of others, this individual can move further away from their selfish needs. One can begin to figure out where they fit in the world around them. Bigger than one's self, type thinking. This is the firm foundation of which quality relationships between people thrive.
I added, that the next level of thought is once the individual, the couple, or the group have satisfied their emotional and practacle needs that this entitiy is free to look past self interest all together. Insecurity is banished, negated even, by a positive stable enviroment built on mutual trust and respect. I believe this is Love in practice. This is when the really great ideas develope. The ideas which can change the world. By helping others unconnected to the entity without any underlying selfish drive, suffering and dissonance in the world is reduced. Pure altruism not dictated by doctrine...
That's as far as the conversation went, but I will never forget it.
This is beautiful and I would give anything to know even one person that I could have such a conversation with...if I had realized in my youth that my friends were some of the deepest, most intellectual and wholly developed REAL people I was ever going to meet for the rest of my life I would have cherished every moment. I already pretty much did but I guess I thought people were going to get more REAL not less...I remember in high school at Liberal Arts in Pensacola I thought when I went to college it was going to be drinking wine and staying up late discussing philosophy. I must have read that in a book somewhere...
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