By Gavin (work in progress)
"A self-aware person will act completely within their capabilities to their pinnacle, while an ignorant person will flounder and encounter difficulty", Socrates
Preface
You get a manual when you purchase your new HI-FI, you receive one when you get a camera – but what's the point? "So you know how to use it". Of course. It's all about ensuring you know what to do when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, how to fix it, how to get the most out of it.
Mother Nature can be applauded for many achievements, but her ability to write instruction manuals is a definite week point.
So, doing what humans are capable of doing, I'm writing a manual.
I am a man, I try to understand women, I try to understand other men, but the focus of this manual is what it is to be a man. Our "computer", our brain, our emotions are something that eludes many of us. It's damn confusing. It's volatile. And when we popped out of our loving mothers all those years ago, we were never given any lessons on how to use it.
Women generally have had more practise at articulating what they believe is happening. I've even read scientific studies that suggest their "vocal processor" is more advanced than men. But in both sexes a link is still missing. So there may be a difference in the sexes ability to articulate but if there is uncertainty as to what is being articulated it still leads to problems (i.e. arguments). I'll talk more about this later.
If ever there was a case of "the blind leading the blind" it is our current strategy of understanding ourselves. Many people are uncertain but we tend to follow the person who is good at looking most certain, or confident!
So what makes me think I know better? I could say "because I'm a man". But honestly, I don't know that I do. I was born scientifically minded. I was qualified as a software engineer. I even went on to start my own business. But something that has always existed in me is an ability to see a little deeper into things, often too deep. Manifesting itself in a constant need to understand and rationalise.
And this skill/burden/gift has given me a lot of plausible explanations to the lives we all lead.
As I share my thoughts with others I can see how my search for self-understanding is one commonly sought. Perhaps not consciously but we are all faced with times of confrontation and difficult decisions. We all "feel" things we would prefer not to. At times we are confused by what we feel. So this book is a journey into a few plausible reasons why things are as they are.
Introduction
Congratulations. You own the most sophisticated biological machine that, to our knowledge, exists in the entire universe. Featuring more than 630 highly specific muscles, cardiovascular system, central nervous system, digestive system, endocrine system, self replenishing hair (if you're lucky), immune system, integumentary (Skin) system, lymphatic system, peripheral nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory system, skeletal system, Urinary System……etc.
Your machine operates efficiently at about 20 degrees Celsius, but with optional-extras can function in extreme temperatures.
With your machine you can reproduce, ponder the meaning of life, create stuff, and share your knowledge with others and many more exciting functions.
MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) is largely determinate on ensuring you look after your machine staying within operating normal's, but averages (in the western world) at about 76.9 years. Make them count!
For the purposes of this manual, we will call your machine "the body". The machine also has a highly sophisticated CPU which we shall call, you'll never guess, "the brain".
Let's begin our journey….
Evolution
"Nature does nothing in vain" Aristotle.
Let's start at the beginning. To understand who we are we need to look back. And surprisingly; not too far.
Many species are driven by their emotions; hunger, reproduction and survival to name a few. But humans have developed something unusual. We have become aware of our emotions, we can think about how we feel. We are aware of our feelings. And the irony of the situation; our emotions don't talk to our intellect. So we often are uncertain where our emotional responses originate.
Clearly if someone pinches you, your brain knows where the pain originated. If someone shouts at you, your ears pinpoint the sound source with a great degree of accuracy. But some days you are sitting on a bus and you "feel" depressed and you just can't figure out where that feeling came from!
Mother Nature has a simple strategy which she ingrains on us all. Survive.
Mainly survival as a species, but obviously to achieve this we need to survive as individuals – but only for as long as we are useful in this pursuit.
To survive a changing environment we adapt, our genes make this possible, this has been reasonable effective in the past; especially when you consider historically environments and social structures change very slowly; over many thousands of years.
Our life-spans are relatively short to enable our genes to change. If we lived longer; the adaptation process would take longer as changes in our genes occur when we reproduce and there is a correlation with life-expectancy and birth-rates.
As a result we, as a species, we have been pretty much the same for thousands of years.
It's probably worth while considering how "young" we are as a species. It always amazes me the issues we are currently struggling to resolve; hunger, poverty, poor education, inequality, sexism, racism, ageism and many more. Even in my life-time we've seen widespread acceptance of women as equals, the acceptance of homosexuality. And a better understanding towards people who are different.
It seems farcical that these issues ever existed. We have computers, we are advanced? How can these issues exist? Some problems feel more akin to children fighting at school. And yet in many parts of the world continuing issues exacerbated by people that should know better. But improvements are being made, and while these exceed decline the world should become a better place. (fingers crossed)
Main points
- We are driven by emotions often post-rationalising our emotionally driven actions.
- Emotions and intellect are not connected. You can't directly control your emotions (i.e. why not try to feel angry or loved, you may find yourself trying to imagine a scenario which will provoke an emotion but you can't directly make yourself feel it).
Population
About 10,000 years ago the world population was 1,000,000 (For reference: In London, England today there is about 8 million people!). And now the world population is about 6,500,000,000! (Although by the time you read this it's probably gone up by another couple of million).
Thousands of years ago you might have lived in a village of thirty people, today that same "village" would have 195,000 people! That would fill Wembley stadium twice (with a sizable queue outside).
The majority of the expansion has occurred in the last 2,000 years and as a result it has fundamentally changed everyone's lives. Unfortunately, our genes weren't designed to adapt at that speed. So we are living in an alien environment. Our bodies can deal with, but our minds struggle.
So how does this actually affect us?
Ever felt really upset when you break-up with your girlfriend (or boyfriend)? That horrible pain in your stomach that can take ages to go away? This is one such artefact left over from ancient times. More about this one later.
Main points
- We are the way we are to exist in an environment which for many of us is long since extinct. An environment where we may only meet a small handful of people in our entire lives.
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