#discussion material

So, don’t post hypothetical notions much, but I figured I’d get this one off my chest.

I see a lot of people bemoaning the current affair of the world and whatnot, and I wanted to share an epiphany.  We have religious people bickering that no one takes them seriously, we have constant bickering between the “races,” location pending.  WE’ve got whole nations that are pissed with other nations and whatnot, and of course the daily unrests, shootings, murders, etc.

Now with the “if it bleeds it leads” addressed, I want to show a bigger picture.  Things are getting better by comparison, and what we’re experiencing right now is akin to “growing pains.”  In our evolution (yes, I used that word, get over it), our ancestors were plains apes, developing large family units, becoming a community.  When those minds came together over a few hundred thousand years, the first “town” was born . . . we learned to work together, but that freed some time to ponder other things, leading to the creation of a populace’s “imaginary friends” (aka gods and spirits), out of fear of being alone and there being little explanation for diseases and disasters.  Going further still, we made large establishments, and slowly nations were born, gathing the local populace and (hopefully) uniting to a common goal or purpose.  Suddenly, the size of the playground got bigger.

We eventually crafted boats and carts, carrying people and goods for trade, meeting more people, other tribes, clans, villages, and nations.  We weren’t as alone as we thought, but we still had this egocentric view that the one area we were born to was more important than the next.  But we hit another milestone . . . the crossing of the planet and it’s once though vast ocean, new lands and new people were encountered, but still we kept our baby blanket of “faith,” protecting our fragile minds from a reality that had surprises, one after another for us. 

But if you look closely at this trend of egocentrism (focused on the self) to establishment of a group (tribalism), rising to village concern (community), then accepting a bigger notion (nationalism), you realise our societal development follows closely our own individual development, but at a MUCH slower pace.  When a child becomes aware, they are lonely after living so long under the notion of the importance of self, and then one tends to create imaginary friends to compensate the loneliness.  We are at a threshold of tearing down the notion of nations and replacing it with globalism . . . everyone on the planet is together in sharing both progress and pain as we continue to improve as a species.  But, we’re that threshold between leaving our “childhood” behind as we become “teens” . . . and as development shows, as teens become aware of others and show sexual interest, we as a species are seeing more genetic mingling and acceptance of others.  Yes, it’s a slow pace (much of it can be attested to a collective childish ruling for so long), but we’re getting there . . . whether it’s 10 years from now, or 1000 . . . don’t ever give up.  When we discovered fire, we were but infants, and we’ve been children for well over 6000 years.  We’re growing up, expanding our awareness and understanding, compassion and reason . . . you don’t have to give up the baby blankets we’ve been raised with, but we also don’t need to rely on them any more because remembering the past and it’s mistakes is just as important as looking to the future and fighting (hopefully in a civil manner) for making things better.