The Human Race
The Meaning of Life
“The meaning of life is to give life a meaning.” — Victor E. Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. He was the founder of logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy which describes a search for a life meaning as the central human motivational force.
Let us allow our younger self, to hold our little finger, and together, try to trace the journey of life to where we are now. Let us ponder at the forces that were in play to inculcate and design our minds?
According to Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, University of California, San Diego; an Indian-American neuroscientist, after the brain processes our thoughts and experiences, the resultant data is accepted as a fact and stored in the hippocampus part of the amygdala, thought to be the centre of emotion part of memory and the autonomic nervous system. Once it is accepted as a fact the data, almost becomes like a conviction, which will then be extremely difficult to dislodge, until it is challenged by another, more significant, thought or idea that becomes worthy of its attention. Faith based and related thoughts, become extremely difficult to be challenged.
Initially the knowledge we take on, from our childhood minds, inculcates a unique role in shaping the neurones in our brains. We have to accept the fact, that the ‘Nature’ is not perfect. The processes of feotal development are conditional in the pre-natal stage; slave to the balance and imbalance of the embryonic fluids the mother’s womb.
At the very early stage, because of limited knowledge, we are continually conditioning ourselves, without really knowing how to examine and verify information. Although, with the limited capability to scrutinise the newly learnt knowledge and because we lack the necessary precesses to examine the new information, we merely accept the knowledge as it is presented to our simple minds. We internally, may even be ecstatic to celebrate the fact that we have gained a new and interesting insight about our environments. This makes us feel somewhat more safer from the unknown environments in which we lived prior to the knowledge. We are busy trying to understand our environments and haphazardly negotiate our way through our lives; the choices undertaken, may be associated to certain vantage points. This process determines our individualities and our uniqueness. It’s certainly a good place to be to start-off on our social journey, as we wander around the unknown world, into which we find ourselves.
The story begins long before we find ourselves at the point of actually knowing the difference between the rights and the wrongs. There are theories about our make up. It is alleged that the life on this planet can originally be attributed to the star dust particles from meteorites landing from the outer universe. The examination of our biological material constitution reveals various metals, elements and chemical compounds found on the earth. It seems that this planet is buzzing with vitality to keep creating various forms of life. The instructions for survival of every form of life is embroidered in the fabric of its DNA. Every life seems to have its unique purpose to be here, be it may even be for a very short while. But in the end it just recycles itself back in to the genesis and give rise to future life. There seems to be an order, in existence, and of existence. The DNA of every cell indicates that it is given an instruction for survival, the reason to be here and to exist.
Information that is passed-on from our ancestry origin, is neatly and orderly compacted to carry and promote its spectrum of uniqueness, through to future generations, for its survival. Are we geared for a struggle to compete or merely employ the zest to position ourself for survival?
Every living creature has its basic survival instructions but the perils of the unknown pushes us to be vigilant to complete the cycle of life. Failing to compromise or negotiate can lead to painful lessons. The application of all lessons leant can be of vital importance, especially in a life or death situation.
So, after the surface preparation, comes the creation of life itself. ‘Why, every human is uniquely different?’. ‘What makes us different from each other?’, are the questions worthy of exploring.
Numerous studies illustrate the complexities; earlier in the pre-natal stages, that a foetus experiences in the womb of its mother and how it negotiates its existence in the embryonic environments. For instance, a mother’s emotional states at various stages of the foetus development, along with the process of each developmental stage, has contributed to the uniqueness of child’s characteristic traits, personality and the ability of its physical survival. Then finally, after the child comes into the world, it has another unexpected stage of dependency and helplessness, that would play a great part in building its character traits. For instance, how long it takes a caretaker to respond to its needs, is measured by the infant. Equipped with emotions and lack of reasoning, it meanders, often boisterously, negotiating with its environments, as it journeys through various developmental stages.
Caretaker’s role is of paramount importance in child’s development and its uniqueness as well as the environmental effects on the individual child. If it is not balanced properly it may leads to further complications and that may even hinder the survival of that particular individual. The developmental stages in the womb can have certain consequences on the individual, that can make it lean in a certain way, the outcome may result in a plethora of traits such as a passive, an active or a nutritive personality.
The study into the uniqueness, of identical twins, for instance, shows that there are other forces of interactions with the outer world, after the anti-natal stage, that shapes our individualities.
The nature equips us with emotions, that are there just to warn us; which serves a purpose to define what is right and what is wrong. Without any reasoning we react instantly to any thing that we may find uncomfortable or alien, that we render threatening. The result of our emotional response could have some inadvertent effects and can only be resolved through reasoning and negotiations, but I am afraid the rationale takes too long to come to our rescue but the emotions are readily there instantly, provided by our survival genes, to protect us from any immediate threat. Hence in our resolve to leave the matter to our natural protection, we even end up defending our pre-judicious emotions, thereby ignoring the obvious rationality of reasoning with our advisories; which only leads to escalation of further indifferences. This is a built in defence system; rightly or wrongly, I would relate to all form of life’s defence mechanism. Any advisory becomes a threat, there is no time to think, but to act in our defence, sometimes instantly. To reason rationally would be too late, an immediate response becomes imminent. To a child his way is the right way. This positioning becomes right and justified, wrongs are attributed only to the others. His decisive view is vital for his survival and he must learn to negotiate from his vantage point. In the exercise in his mastery, other choices could lead to a dangerous road to slavery; which is non-negotiable and worth the struggle, even if he loses. We must learn our negotiating abilities in the struggle to illustrate the power for and of our uniqueness.
As the defensive emotions react to safe guard us, the ’Rationale’ is locked out until we feel safe enough, or the ‘Emotional’ stage is drained and exhausted with its efforts, though hesitantly, we open the door of reasoning. In time after paying the price we learn and even then we find it extremely difficult to surrender to Rationale. The force of survival are quite forceful to ensure our existence.
Somehow, some of us manage to learn to negotiate our ways, but some find it not to their advantage; as they feel they’re much stronger for a better negation; knowing their strength, by the use of sheer brutal force, which they can easily utilise, as long as it is not severely challenged. Lessons are learnt. Losses and gains are rationalised amid the perils of emotional courage, willingness to defend, what one considers to be right, but not necessarily just. Such negotiations are basically of animal nature, justifying positioning. Why we mostly adopt these methods are because it is built into the tapestry of our survival. To be different to other animals we have to pay a much bigger price in order to earn the supremacy to be able to be called ‘Being Human’. To be strong, to be liked, to be loved, to be popular, to be successful and be competitive, are all tools for survival in the uncertain world of human jungle.
By Azhar Ali
