How Is Humanity Weak? 4

Humans are survival-oriented

Human beings are wired to be survivalists. This doesn’t mean that we can necessarily be dropped in the middle of any wilderness and figure out how to live in harsh conditions. I know that I would die, and quickly, if stuck in that kind of a situation. Rather, we are wired to focus on the things that pertain to our own needs, and to help us attain those needs.

I am not just talking about food, clothing and shelter, although this is part of it. But most of us live in a society in which these foundational needs are provided for, even to those who are unable to obtain them on their own. Once the basic survival needs are taken care of, then we focus on other aspects of survival. We focus on security, so we are protected from harm, whether that be from wild dogs or from the threat of terrorists. We focus on social connection, because we know that there is strength in numbers. We focus on inner peace, because we know that excessive stress can kill us (or others if we tend to be an angry type).

And there is nothing wrong with trying to survive in these ways. The problem is, even when we have our needs met in these areas, we tend to do more than our survival necessitates, and when we overcompensate, our ability to survive actually goes down, not up. Our need for security easily becomes anxiety, which causes excessive stress and we tend to overreact to others—causing destruction to both ourselves and others. We can eat to survive, or we can eat to self-medicate our mental instabilities which causes us physical problems. We can work to maintain enough money to live on, but if money becomes a matter of societal honor, we can horde money for ourselves—money we don’t need or use—until we become dependent on an obscenely high salary, and that becomes our level for survival. And society can become obese as well until they make it a legal necessity for others to live according to their high level of normalcy, where they end up punishing those who do not live with electricity or a certain kind of housing.

Because of our tendency to focus on survival, humans tend to over-survive. We see certain levels of lifestyles as the “basics”, but we very much overcompensate for what we actually need. Paul said, “With food and clothing we shall be content”, yet try to find a single follower of Paul who agrees with this statement.