Ain’t life a bitch?

The human soul…it seems to resemble a black hole…we know little to nothing about it and it often swallows everything around us…the results? Often unknown or misinterpretated.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about life and the way we are as people. I’m not sure where I stand in this life of mine. I’m seeing the people around me, I judge them, they judge me, we all judge each other…in good ways, in bad ways…but in the end, doesn’t it all come back to us? Isn’t it really just about ourselves?

Let’s take a closer look. As humans, we like the idea of being in charge, that we’ve control over our life. We grow up with values and standards, often teached by our parents, and, as we grow older, we’re impressed and moulded by our environment and peers, may it be in school, at work or in our social life and with the people who surround us. So are we really as free in our choices and thinking? Or aren’t all decisions already made in one way or another the minute we are born?
It’s a never ending circle, like a moebius loop. Since Adam and Eve, human beings saw the things around them and they perceived it differently. Since everyone perceives everything in a unique way that is never 100% the same with anyone on earth(just like snow flakes), naturally, we have billions of perceptions. Those form billions of opinions, billions of mindsets. Those mindsets all blend in. The billions of single opinions and perceptions go through a certain selection, since certain groups of people are quite similar to each other.

We have people who are very religious, we have people who have high moral values. We have people who have no or low moral values. We have people who are obviously selfish and do not feel that there’d be anything wrong with it, nor would they feel remorse for what they are doing. Other people are also selfish, but they always regret what they do. All those groups often interfere with each other. That creates tension. Let’s take a closer look.

Let’s say we have a couple. There’s a girl who meets a guy. Now a lot of people seem to like the idea that humans get together as a couple because they share a lot of common interests or they have, what they call „chemistry“. Really?

Basically, isn’t it more realistic and logical that from our first meeting with someone else, we can not know anything about that person yet? All our impressions of that person can only create a vague assumption at best. And that’s what happens in any of those cases, no matter how smart or dumb we may be. That’s our nature.
Some people will keep to themself what they assume about the person they meet. Others will blurt it out to that person. And yet others will tell their assumption to their peers and friends, oblivious(or ignoring) to the fact, that those are assumptions and hence don’t have to match with reality.

But since we’re actually very selfish as humans and we aren’t really able to think about someone else the way they would think about them, we can not put us in their shoes. At best, we can imagine when we think we were in a similar situation and we can think back to our own reactions, emotions or thoughts at that time.

So let’s get back to our example. A girl and a guy meet. Since they can not know anything about each other, they can only be attracted by physical appearance or maybe attitude. Guys probably rather react to physical appearance, girls might appeal to attitude too.
Either way, the ego trip continues. What would be a logical reason for those two people, who don’t know anything about each other yet(how could they?) to be together?
Guy A might think „wow, she’s a hottie, if I go out with her, my friends will be so jealous of me and I can impress them and create envy in them and that will make me feel better and boost my ego“.

Girl B might think something similar. Or she feels a certain feeling when she sees this guy(whatever that feeling may be based on, like a primal instinct for example) and she thinks that by being with this guy, she can have 24/7 access to this feeling.

The point being: We wouldn’t have any couples if it was for mere charity. We always get something from being with another person. Whether it’s sex, money, looks, respect, the jealous looks of others around us, a boost for our ego or even just a happy feeling. But would we really be with someone if that would get us nothing but negative feelings? Well, who knows, maybe some freaks might actually even want that and like it, but normally no one would, right?

So now that we’ve established that, we can think further about why we grow up with so many lies. Since the dawn of time, we grow up with certain values. Some of us grow up with Christian(Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc) values. Basically, most religions teach us tolerance and respect for our fellow people. But if that’s really who we’d be…wouldn’t have god made respect and tolerance a factory installed option? The fact that we obviously still fail to be the way the bible tells us we should be seems to show us, that god probably created us this way, because we need that friction and tension. Maybe this is the essence of life, what makes life interesting and special. Without an ego, we’d be seemingly perfect. Even Jesus showed some ego in his last hours and at other occassions. That shows that he’s also part human, right?
And since he’s god’s son, god could have created him without an ego. And yet he did.

Religions teach us tolerance and respect, but it seems to be more fun and more interesting to most of us to ignore those rules. Even the strongest believer seem to be incapable to keep all the rules at all times throughout all of their life. A test?

So we grow up, learning that we should be nice to others, we should respect them…and if we do, they’d do the same. That sounds like a nice deal. But already in kindergarten(if not sooner), we’ll already have to find out that reality is different. In reality, we have kids, stealing our shovel, throwing sand in our little face or throwing rocks at us.
Why would they do that? Most certainly, because they also get something from it(just like our aforementioned couple). It’s hard to tell what each single person would get from a nasty act like throwing rocks. But obviously, it must give them something.

On that matter, I was thinking about love and relationships and marriage. It seems that love and marriage are sort of outdated these days. People split up over nothing and they cheat on each other all the time. It seems to be inevitable. People have by far too many choices and even though people have a conscience and a mind to tell them what’d be best for them, they often(or always) seem to opt for what’s trouble, danger or forbidden. Maybe that seems to be more exciting than following the rules. Let’s just think of Adam and Eve(and the apple) or Kain and Abel. Give people everything they’d want and need and they’d surely find a way to poke holes in it and destroy it.

So is there hope after all for us? Or are we already doomed? Is the homo sapiens of the future more of a homo destructivus? Is being obviously selfish and coldhearted the best lifestyle to get through life?

Well, history shows us many examples of people who decided not to walk down that dark path. Although our history has probably more examples of how violent and brutal it can look if humans go to war over selfish reasons and do the worst of things to each other, it seems that the good deeds seem to shine much lighter and seem to interest us even more than the bad ones. Aren’t we all somewhat touched or feeling as part of humanity if people help each other or show that they’re seemingly unselfish?

I think in the end, there is no wrong or right. Those who consider themself good will surely always condemn those, who do what we know as „bad things“(e.g. murder, adultery, theft), while those who are labeled(or happy to call themselves) bad will probably think that those who are „good“ are all gullable, stupid oafs, who can be taken advantage of.
Eventually, we can not really judge any group as a whole, because there is no real border inbetween. We can easily turn from good to bad or bad to good…sometimes that can happen a hundred times, even within just weeks or days.

It’s probably something I’ll have to learn to live with and that we all have to decide for us individually…to what kind of values and standards we want to live up to. We just shouldn’t forget that we all have different perceptions and we actually could never blame others, if they aren’t sharing our opinion or if they don’t feel the same way about something(or for someone, e.g. us), because we don’t own ultimate wisdom. We may be right, we may be wrong. And we can find people who agree with us on many things. But eventually, we’d waste our lives if we’d keep thinking that we have to look for perfection, because neither one of us is perfect…we’re far from it. In the end, we just should be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and not deny ourselves.