Did you ever ponder for a minute you were a human being? The most intelligent mammal on the planet. I always puzzled how powerful and rational we are as a species and yet regret how pathetic we can be. Animals sound more reasonable to me.

Aldous Huxley once said “Non-rational creatures do not look before or after, but live in the animal eternity of a perpetual present; instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration; and they are never tempted to live otherwise than in accord with their own… immanent law.”

The main cause of all the man made problems is his so called intelligence, The dictionary defines ‘ego’ as ‘conscious thinking self’, so ego is another word for the intellect. Trying to find proof of his worthiness The human encounters his ego, The human ego becomes increasingly embattled. It becomes focused or centred on trying to establish his worthiness. He becomes egocentric. In attempt to explain himself and his ego he uses language. When the human found he couldn’t explain himself satisfactorily, he became frustrated and tried to demonstrate that he wasn’t ‘bad’ or ‘inferior’ or ‘worthless’. He picked up a stick and hurled it away, challenging the innocents to throw one as far. When this sad and desperate effort to demonstrate his worth failed to impress, he retaliated against the unfair criticism. He attacked innocence. He struck one of the innocents in a frustrated attempt to stop the unwarranted criticism. Violence, and in the extreme, war, began. Finally, when the human tried to escape the unfair criticism. He ‘put his fingers in his ears’ to block it out and ‘ran away to hide from it’. So when humanity went in search of meaning or understanding we became: egotistical (forever trying to explain, prove or demonstrate our underlying ‘goodness’ and thereby maintaining our self-esteem), competitive (against the implication that we are bad) , aggressive, mentally ‘blocked out’ or evasive and thus alienated (paradoxically, we became especially evasive of the selfless ideal, the integrative meaning of life, because it unfairly criticised our selfish, divisive and apparently disintegrative behaviour), escapist (superficial), and very unhappy. In short, we became upset and are developed an inherent disgust for ourself which we vent out on others.

Inspired from the book : BEYOND THE HUMAN CONDITION, Jeremy Griffith