Monday, December 15, 2008

Beyond Mere Survival

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Why is it so hard to find the root of the act of violence?

Is it because it precedes even my own existence? my parents, grandparents, even my great-great-great-grandparents?
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Did it all begun when the human being started to defend itself - when we begun to protect ourselves from the environment, from nature itself - when we begun to fight for our survival?

Did it begun with our ancestors - who had to face overwhelming odds against the forces of nature? And from them, did we inherited these instincts, these mechanisms - the instincts of self-preservation and the conservation of the species? Surely, our ancestors would have never survived without these mechanisms. It was these instincts that kept them together and united - but, later on, these same mechanisms made them turn against each other. Has the time for a new mechanism to develop arrived?

So, it must have been our primary function and purpose - first to survive - but now, it is clear that we need to go beyond mere survival - to survive.

With more than seven billion individuals on this planet, there could be no doubt that the human species will survive for a long foreseeable future.

Is now the moment for the human species to go beyond mere survival?

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