Today as I type this WeBlog entry I am drinking a smoothy made from coconut milk, yogurt, ginger, spices and various fruits. These ingredients have come from sources all over the world. They were brought to local stores, each requiring the sum effort of thousands of people to design, build and sustain. Considering the effort behind the transportation, including creating the vehicles, then the raw material harvesting and fabricating to make any of this possible; the big picture becomes too big to even contemplate in detail as one large system. Just for me to have a morning smoothy, let alone being able to have that smoothy in the pleasance of my home comfortably heated on this blustery Winter day, requires an unimaginably complex system of cooperative interdependence.

As I sip my morning beverage there is a squirrel nibbling on some treat unknown to me outside my window. There are vast differences between the squirrel and myself. 

My life is afforded many conveniences owed entirely to the human intellect unique to our species. Though it is unlikely the squirrel and I will ever sip coffee together (I prefer tea), we share much in common, as we do with all other living creatures on this planet.


We must eat to survive. We are driven to procreate. As with many of our planetary co-occupants we have instincts to form in hierarchical social structures. All of us creatures that are mobile on our planet as we ride around the sun together strive to avoid, and move away from pain. Alternatively we also all move toward pleasure. Centuries of analysis using this differentiating intellect of ours has repeatedly concluded that this is all biologically driven, for all of us creatures of this existence.

My point is that though our intellect is a defining human attribute that has constructed a civilization allowing me to have a morning smoothy using out of season fruits and spices, some that cannot even be grown where I live in any season; we are not excepted from the natural order of our most fundamental home. We are creations of this earth and as such, are subject to the natural laws of this earth and no less. I'm not taking away from the fact that we are miraculous creations of this Earth, nor that we can do some pretty amazing things within those natural laws. All the same though; products of the Earth and subject to its laws.

Under the umbrella of the laws of nature are the laws of animal conduct and beneath that are the laws of human nature. Animal Conduct defines the fundamental motivations feeding into the value set of all animals on this planet. These would be the motivations to eat, sleep, procreate and simply to survive. In all cases it is a law here that one thing must die that another may live. Whether it be a deer hunted in the woods, cattle raised on a ranch or a carrot plucked from the ground, death begets life. Every sentient being sleeps to it's own schedule and procreates to it's own rituals. These are the laws of Animal Conduct in nature.

Every animal type conducts itself differently to satisfy the natural laws of its existence. Those are the laws of its specific nature and in that space are the laws of human nature. Though ours is a complex nature that can be hard to discern for its overlap in conduct and distortions imposed by maintaining a society, human nature still most definitely is very real. Lions hunt. Squirrels gather and deer graze. We as humans both hunt and gather, though unless at a Las Vegas buffet; we do not graze. These aspects of our nature can be masked by our farming and grocery distribution practices, but that even can be seen as an exercise in gathering at the very least.

Unlike bats and horses we are horizontal sleepers and unlike deer and elk that sleep in the open we are more like bears and badgers that seek shelters to rest. We are among the animals that do our predominate sleeping in 24 hour cycles. As in most of nature our drive to procreate, or at least perform the acts and rituals of procreation, is powerful. Also powerful is our nature to function and feel empowered in a hierarchical social structure. Establishing a sense of predictability, often thought of as "control," where territorialism plays an important role, is also deeply rooted in the psyche of the brain-bearing animal. Environment and situational change requires energy hungry adaptation by the brain, which seeks to conserve energy by establishing predictability.

Not unique in nature, but experienced strongly in human nature, is our desire for sparkly things and toys to stimulate our intellects in addition to our emotional states. "Sparkly things" in the context of this writing is not limited strictly to those items that literally reflect light into our eyes, but also those things that glimmer in our intellect. For some that intellectual glimmer could be triggered by an exotic sports car painted in flat black, or some high end footwear, neither of which actually reflect light in any way.

Beneath the nature of a species, in our case human nature, lay individual values, and this is where things get dodgy. Our values define the unique paths we as individuals take to satisfy the common objectives of our shared nature. For example, we must all eat. To satisfy this need we take paths as hunters, shoppers, gardeners, restauranteurs, vegetarians, vegans, omnivores, carnivores and many more; all satisfying a need to satiate in ways that feel right to each traveler on their path defined by their values

It is in our nature to crave a sense of belonging, to find “our people.” We gather in groups of common interest, goals and values seeking the companionship of others whose journeys parallel our own. Even wildly popular individuals who seem to have hundreds, or even thousands of friends have an “inner circle” that defines their true tribe.

I recently read a quote of unknown origin that says, “Everyone you meet is working through a struggle you know nothing about.” I fail to see any way this could not be true with each of us moving through life striving to satisfy our natural inclinations by way of personal values while at the same time avoiding conflict with our tribe’s common interests. To have a smoothly functioning society we must restrain our animal instincts and function with social guidelines. One could not effectively operate stores if everyone simply acted in animal reflex and just took what we craved to satisfy our need to satiate. We could not farm if we did not temper our drive to create safe domains by peacefully relinquishing territory into rationalized boundaries. By way of our values and cost/benefit analysis we are able to modulate tensions created when we cannot meet the needs of our fundamental nature directly. Because we understand the benefits of our land boundary system in allowing for food growth, raw material harvesting, transportation and distribution; we willingly manage our lives in physical territories defined by our system rather than by the animal instincts to conquer and defend. It is when the system benefits are not understood, or the system fails to satisfy fundamental need, that intellect and rational thought give way to more primitive drivers directly motivating decision and action. Because of the role our societal systems play indirectly satisfying our fundamental needs they become an element of defining our identity. Our identities have historically been, in part, defined by the value driven path we chose to satisfy our fundamental needs. It is now our chosen role in supporting the systems that indirectly satisfy our needs, and by necessity, the needs of the community serviced by that system, that becomes a defining element of our identities. With our identities being necessarily defined more by our societal role and conduct than by our inherent animal and human natures our skill at managing, or even repressing these components of self has now also become a defining component of our identities. This is an aspect of self given rise uniquely in the human animal as a requirement of functioning within our complex societies born of our intellect equally unique to the human animal.

No wonder there is tension and confusion - we are all living in denial of fundamental truths. We are in denial of our own animal natures while at the same time being resentful of others for theirs. This - this is the boat we are all in together. We are all moving through our days dealing with the inner tensions and conflicts between our rigidly defined fundamental animal needs and the plastic rules of conduct existing only in our perceptions. Consider further that as our societal advancements consistently increase the complexity of our societal environment, often in the name of simplifying our lives, so also does it increase the breadth and frequency of our interactions. In so doing the number and diversity of value systems brought together, further creating opportunities for interaction of divergent value systems, increases exponentially.

Until we can come to understand with clarity that though one may defend their values with malice and deception, nobody's values are created that way; derision and consternation will remain an under current in our lives. Every person’s values are created to satisfy their fundamental natural needs based on all past experience and interaction of their lives and create inner tensions they strive to resolve as comfortably as possible. The perceptions, values and conflicts of every person out there are as real to them as our own are to each of us.

Until we come to understand that embracing diversity requires more than slapping a bumper sticker on our car, that embracing diversity is more about having patience with conflicting values than pretending to ignore flesh tone, our efforts to genuinely accept one another and function as a tolerant society shall forever remain skin deep. When we can learn to appreciate that each of us is in a struggle between our fundamental nature and our societal constraints, that we are all dealing with inner struggles between our perceptions of the outer world and our inner motivations; perhaps then we will be able to mend our divides as we learn true tolerance.

Journey on ...