This is a question that I have wondered about for a long long time now and of recently it seems to me that the answer to that question is growing more and more important. It is as if, the very answer to the question itself will avert some great disaster that is to befall on all of humanity.
So, you would wonder what that question is? The question is simple: “Is there any purpose at all to life? If there is? What is it? And if there is none, then why does humanity exist at all?
Let’s take the case that there is a purpose to life. What could it be? Surely it could not be “Earth+Plastic”, as the great George Carlin claimed it to be? Is nature trying out an experiment with us? See what happens when it lets loose complex life forms and allows them to evolve in what way the life forms take?
As you can probably tell, I am more inclined to the answer that life has no purpose whatsoever. That it is due to a combination of various factors like Earth being in the Goldilocks Zone, the values of the various constants like Boltzmann’s being what they are lead to the evolution of single cell life forms that mutated to form us Humans billions of years later.
Then why is that humans have created such a complex social structures that seems intended on getting more and more complex. Most of humanity faces difficulties to attain a standard of life that it wants to maintain. Yet, once one reaches a standard of life, he/she doesn’t rest there but continues to struggle to get a better standard of life…the cycle is endless.
Think about the Hunter-Gathers who were our ancestors had a more simpler and easier life. Sure, the life expectancy was low; there were more physical dangers and no Internet!! But, their lives in many ways were easier, they didn’t have to involve in complex financial chicanery to stay at the same social status given the inflation levels.
There are people out there who actually like what they are doing. But what percentage of humanity do they represent? A small insignificant number and mostly I am inclined to say would contain people of fields such a research, arts and fields were the people are allowed, expected to use ingenuity.
But the vast majority of humans by the needs of the keeping the economy running and thereby providing for themselves are forced to do non-ingenuous work, work that is mundane and terribly boring.
It has always been my belief that Humans are Hedonistic beings, I mean seriously, have you met any human who wouldn’t like to relax without any worries. Sure, there are workaholics, I am not denying that, but explanation will incorporate this detail.
I am going to go out on a limb and claim that humanity has some degree of “masochistic-sadism” that is embedded into our genes. I am not using the term “sadomasochism” but “masochistic-sadism” because while the former is used to primarily refer to sexual acts the latter term(my own creation) I think refers to what I am trying to convey better.
Of course, I think I’ll leave it to psychologist to come up with a proper term, but I would be honored if they use the term that u have coined here. (Me be honored? More like I’ll have anyone who comes up with an alternate term decapitated. That should be incentive enough, don’t you think?)
The reason why I have chosen to use the term “masochistic-sadism” is because the behavior is primarily aimed at causing pain to others rather to oneself. It is just as an after effect that one is affected. The extent being of such a magnitude that it causes a pleasure response in the human brain.
This explains why hedonistic creatures like us subject ourselves into creating a complex structure that serves no purpose other than to keep us doing something that gives us no pleasure. I would like to clarify here that I am not referring to individuals alone here but also to groups (of people). In fact, humanity as a whole, as a single entity would be the first under this category.
The logical question anybody is going to ask me is there any empirical evidence that you can place before us, one that can be independently verified. I am going to say look around you. What more evidence do you need than what is happening right around you. You all have in all probability been seeing it everywhere but not observing it. (There is a lot of difference between seeing and observing.)
The solution to this type of behavior? The obvious that most would think about is to locate the gene that causes the “masochistic-sadism” and have it removed from every human’s DNA. But, I assure you this would only lead to many other problems, for humans have not progressed to the stage and never may when they can predict exactly what the aftereffects of removal of a particular gene may cause. This of course is assuming that the behavior is caused by a single gene and not due to interplay of many genes. This of course depends on whether humans will be able to locate the gene(s) that affect behavior.
If it were possible to point out that this gene affects precisely this attribute to such an extent, then I would have designed for myself a new body and transferred my consciousness into the new body (Of course, my most loyal followers to will be given new bodies…bodies that might last significantly longer than the human body that I currently reside in.) More on this later my dear subjects.
Instead, my solution is simpler…destroy humanity….ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (Evil laughter). Or at least cull the human species. There is a reason why I am saying what I am saying. (What is it exactly that I am saying??) I think the “masochistic-sadism” behavior is due to the over population that we have. The current total resources available to humanity are not enough to sustain the current human population. And I am sure the situation will continue to persist for quite a long time, unless someone ( like me) takes decisive action to correct it. At one go, we are serve many purposes. We remove the scourge of earth and all living creatures -humans. We also get rid of the “masochistic-sadism” problem that is facing humans.
The above paragraph was of course to quench my megalomania. But here’s the answer, there is no solution. There are only options that we can try. One would be to consciously try to simply things. Like teaching our children that growing or becoming powerful are not the only thing in life and more importantly following that in our own lives.
Hopefully, over many many generations this behavior, may be even couple of centuries (If the human species survives that long, and I don’t think it will last that long.) would become strong enough to override the “masochistic-sadism” tendency.
Of course, one may ask what was the purpose of the long winded article above that does not even have a proper ending. But, isn’t the question what if there is a purpose to the drivel? An unnoticed (hopefully) purpose that will show itself quite later upon careful introspection.
