I was motivated to write this having reflected on my interactions with the human species recently.
They pride themselves as being several notches above other animals. They have built very large and complicated structures. Their intelligence has allowed them the privilege of creating weapons that could destroy the whole planet they live on. They have sent men to the moon and spacecraft to very distant worlds. They control large amounts of energy. They can produce lots of food. They can fight off very serious illnesses.
Yet they are ruled largely by emotions and primitive instincts that lurk deep in the substrata of all that intelligence. Ruled? Sure. When they do something that happens to be in conflict with their intellectual prowess, what do they do? They tend to become emotionally upset. That may or may not show itself. But whichever way, it frequently takes hold of their cognitive processes and steers them in a pathway aimed at defending the ‘integrity’ of the emotional being living deep inside. The endpoint of that is that they then feel justified in their actions both at cognitive and emotional levels.
The cognitive aspect is seen in the processes related to rationalisation. The emotional aspect of justification is observed by a sense of satisfaction – a feel good factor. Therein lies the seeds of what is commonly referred to as evil. The conscious mind can be directed by this unconscious stratum, to rationally seek vengeance in its various forms. The latter provides the emotional justification. But extending that further they can easily arrive at terrorism.
The emotional being gets in the way of progress and can produce chaos:
- It slows down two way communication pathways destined for the cognitive being.
- Communicators have to exert greater energy not to upset each other in order to maintain a clear conduit of communication – seen so often in political, legal, crime, and business negotiations.
- Envy is part of the emotional being. It drives people to madness.
- Avarice – drives individuals to exploit others.
The cognitive being is capable of great feats of logic and understanding, too many to mention here. If only this being could be unshackled.
I feel sad for me and this human race. We are so slow and so primitive. So intelligent and so stupid. I feel powerless. I wish I did not feel.