Mammalian like you

4th January 2011

A NEW YEAR


I wonder if enlightenment includes being able to separate what binds us to mammals from what we are able to discern practically, as objective intelligent beings. For example, love is a simple reaction to hormonal changes in the brain and a host of other rather inconvenient mixtures of shyte that get in the way. Love for our children merely becomes the fact that we need to preserve our genes. We succumb to the purely physical, the purely animal.
Our instincts to protect other children are simply the footprint in our brains: the need to protect the next generation. Wars are males of the species (no sexism intended, but the truth is that is how it works in nature ) displaying, defending territory, pissing in their neighbour's yard.
Happiness is satisfaction in the feeling that we are going through all the motions correctly, achieving our mammalian goals.
And yet we wonder why as humans we have 50% depression rates over a lifetime. Are we in fact in a situation where we are simply trapped and as mammals will sometimes find when they are locked up in a zoo where the cages are too small for them, we become depressed. Are we creating an environment where there is no way out, where depression is a way of life because we can not achieve what our bodies and minds are supposed to be able to achieve. We are cursed with a brain that tries to tell us day to day that in fact the meaning of life lies hidden in a bucket of KFC, in the latest shade of lipstick, the shiniest fabric or the cutest arse you can muster in a summer season. Happiness is the subject of countless books, seminars, essays, women's magazines. How to achieve the perfect body, the perfect meal, the perfect date, the perfect eyebrow shape. Religions provide a framework of behaviour to guide our actions, to get to the hidden kingdoms. Why do we all dream that one day we will be wholly happy, no matter what, we will achieve all we ever wanted? What do we want? The biggest house, a pool, happy children. What is wrong with living now and not waiting for what might happen later?
When are we happiest? When we abandon the laws of unnature that we have set ourselves: when we simply throw creature comforts aside, abandon our pseudo-responsibilities and allow ourselves to have irresponsible fun. We go for walks for leisure, we spend time with people we would prefer to see more often, we get together in groups.
This is how chimps live I guess. In large groups, gathering all day long, occasionally hunting and lying in the sun when it is all over spending time with loved ones. Helping each other out with child care, with gathering.
When people abandon some of society's norms; for example, choose to not have television, choose not to buy vegetables but alas, grow them in our backyards; or choose to live within a bartering system, we ridicule them. And unlike what they are probably trying to achieve, that is, unity with the universe and getting closer to nature, they end up isolated and labelled freaks.
Don't get me wrong, I am the first one to yearn for a shower when I am off camping. But I have grown up in this society too!!!
I also participate in this human race that makes us live longer....and yet the secret of a healthy body and a healthy mind comes back to good food and exercise.....
I guess I would wish that I an live as authentically as I can. To listen to my body, to eat what it needs, to exercise when needed. Our society is such that a lot of these things we are meant to be doing are abandoned ahead of work, washing dishes, keeping up with the joneses.
Don't you ever feel just a little bit trapped?
I wish you all a savage new year. May your inner mammal find satisfaction and peace. Seize the day.