HUMAN NATURE (1)
I am not a scientist. When I accidentally enrolled in Physics for Physics majors as my choice to meet the science requirement at Wooster College it was revealed to me how little scientific aptitude I had. Somehow I managed a D-. Introduction to Evolution was my replacement course to meet the requirement. So my wondering about human nature comes from a very shaky background. But nevertheless I believe that the very slow evolutionary process of parts of DNA changing through accidental mutations is what has led to the wide variety of life on earth. I believe in natural selection leading to the traits that help all forms of life to survive. I believe all of this without really understanding it.
What I believe is that human nature is formed this way. Just as my son’s dog Maggie is impelled along by inner drives, fierce resistance to being attacked, wild ecstasy when she encounters someone she is familiar with, and does this unconsciously, I am impelled along in the same way. The activities that make me feel most alive are activities that are necessary for the survival of the species: awareness, a sense of irony, empathy for my fellow humans, sensuality in all its forms.
But I also have traits that are necessary for survival—competition, fury when threatened, personal greed, a desire to dominate—which may help me survive but make me feel much less alive, traits that I am ashamed of.
And it is all of these inner visceral drives which are part of my DNA, usually of which I am unconscious, that I have to deal with within myself and in the DNA embedded nature of other humans.
I don’t think any of these traits divinely given or that there is some universal laws of nature that I have to aspire to. I have to get along within human nature, my own and others. I see these forces, both those that make me feel more alive and those that make me feel immobilized and suffocated and threatened by all around me. I see these tensions as being central to the tremendous tensions in the world today in which the greatest threats to any of us are from our fellow humans.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 