Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Our conscious minds

This is just a venting of thoughts, there's a few ideas in here that i'll probably expand on more later.

The biggest thing that separates humans from other species and animals is the development of conscious mind and awareness of one's self. We have thought processes. We worry, love, hate, stress, envy, and feel a vast array of emotions. Why do we do this? Our conscious mind allows us to do these things, good or bad. Other animals act on instinct and survival. We work out complex math problems, worry about if the person standing next to us can see the stain on the front of our shirt and if our physical features are appealing to others. Other animals have thought processes and can do a little bit of reasoning but it's extremely limited. We are highly evolved beings. We can appreciate a great deal of sensations and emotions.

I constantly go back and forth about how I feel about this. I enjoying reading and researching about history and the various ways humans view our reality and perceptions on life. I love music and enjoy looking at nature and interacting with other people that make me happy. This aspect of a conscious mind I'm very grateful for. We have this ability so why not use it to it's fullest extent. I hate when people just settle and go along with life. I'd rather learn and question things. The unexamined life is not worth living was said by Socrates. I completely agree with this and is a concept I live my life by. But part of me is jealous of the simple life other creatures have. They are driven by instinct, necessity and survival, not emotions and desires. Having a conscious mind allows me to have these feelings, if I did not have this mind I would be content with not having the emotions and desires because I would have no understanding of them. But would I be happy? Would I also not have an understanding of happiness and just simply survive and maintain?

Awareness of mortality is the ultimate by product of consciousness and understanding. If this one thing was not aware to us our world would be vastly different. It's hard to say but maybe everyone would be much happier. I'm almost certain that religion and spirituality would not exist, there would be no need for it. The whole basses for religion and the idea of a god is to basically live awaiting to hopefully go to heaven and be a good enough person not to go to hell. Maybe we would take greater chances in life and gain more happiness. If you think about it for a minute a lot of aspects of the world would change.

The moral of the story is that really you need to be content (not saying to not be happy, just understand it) with life. Everything is a sacrifice and a chance. We some times lose perspective of everything. We live and experience love, hate, worry, happiness and sadness at a price for understanding that those things can also not exist. It's part of life, it's a gamble. We experience loneliness and sadness but also have many opportunities for love and happiness. It's the price of a conscious and aware mind.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Life would be easier without having to deal with all of these emotions but i agree it sure would be boring.

jamesypoo said...

you should watch the 11th hour. haha. its trippy man, breaks down humanity.