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Ginnie's avatar

The things you describe are not a bug in humanity they are a prominent feature and inherent in our species. Bless your heart but you want us to be something we never were and never can be. We can never be what is not inherent in us, history has proven that: from the time humans were dwelling in caves to becoming sedentary and then building entire civilizations what you describe: hate, combativeness, killing one another over resources, land, food, water, wealth, vanity, power... have been part of the human condition. And all throughout it people have known mortality. This is nothing new. In many ways feudalism never ended, it has just been renamed with ever more colorful terms. There has never been a time in history where humans not waged war against one another, where they did not pillage and destroy and starve their neighbor's kids. Nothing has changed and nothing will change. Humans won't stop until they have burned it all - the planet and everything on it - to the ground. That is part of our programming, the rest is wishful thinking at best, denial at worst. And I get it, who wants to believe they are part of a species programmed to destroy, pillage, murder and set on fire everything it gets its hands on? Speak of accepting that which cannot be changed: accept that this is who we are. All we can do is be kind to ourselves, those around us and the creatures that walk this Earth with us. But the trajectory is the same for our species and the planet we are inhabiting no matter what. All we can do is make it a little less painful on an individual, micro scale but the outcome for us a species will always be the same.

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John Pretty's avatar

Hmm, well actually, our humanity should unite us. And does sometimes. Unfortunately humans are a tribal species. In my (humble) opinion efforts might best be directed at minimising this instinct to defend against those we perceive as outsiders. Instead, of course our "leaders" in the West try to emphasise and encourage this in us. (It's more profitable for the MIC).

I do have an issue with the apparently obvious assertion that "we're all going to die." Yes and no.

Your body dies. For sure. Once you reach a certain age you come to recognise this. However, fearing this is due to identification with your body. Saying you die is actually as much a delusion as saying you don't die.

Now I'm confusing you. It's not easy to explain this, especially to a cynical audience (such as it is). I'm not really an expert communicator. There's nothing airy-fairy or "spiritual" about this though.

Maybe the best I can do is ask you maybe to realise that although your conscious, thinking self is carried by and within your body it is not really actually your body. So you can say your body dies (and ages) but "you" don't.

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