This is a question that came to me while listening to a song on my Frankenstein playlist, How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths.
Why is love necessary for our survival and wellbeing as humans? The evolutionary answer would be that we survive by being social, and therefore to get us to socialise, evolution gave us the ability to feel loved, and give it a positive connotation, so we would seek it out for ourselves within social circles, therefore maintaining social bonds and ensuring our survival as an individual and as a group. But evolution has always let things pass that shouldn’t, it’s a flawed system; it does not work to make us perfect as much as it works by the cold logic of ‘if something kills us, whatever holds it shall die and shall not be able to reproduce, making the offspring lack this trait’. What it fails to account for is things that do not exactly kill us, but do make it much harder to survive. I also think that evolution has a habit of overdoing things — I have a theory (I say theory because I’m not fully sure) that consciousness is perhaps an evolutionary trait that helps us survive that got out of hand and has led us to be existential, overthinking wretches. But has consciousness killed us? Has this terrible trait made us die? Not in the majority, and so we still have it. If evolution was an active force rather than the name of a law then I would not be holding a phone and writing to you, and I would be by far much happier than I am now.
The same goes for love, and that need for sociality. The same love we feels in turn makes us feel hatred; our need to be accepted, to feel worth, also makes us turn and dislike others just to fit in. Why does our existence rely on what others feel? Others who, due to being so heavily evolved in sociality and ‘the group’, hate anything outside of it? Why does my worth, my life, my everything, rely on the people who despise me for who I am? Why do I have this instinct that curses me, but on rare occasions brings me such joy? Truly you can see why the Gnostics thought that this place was hell, and that we must escape back to Sophia. We are corrupt chimeras made of stardust that are equally angelically beautiful and horrifically violent. We are monstrous. We were not meant to be created. There is still so much I must learn to understand and find the answer to all of this. We are instinctual and therefore…terrible. I hate my instincts. I hate that we have instincts. I hate that I must feel love to be validated, and I think that I am blessed to be odd to the rest of you in the way that I hardly need it, but even then, maybe I need it more than I think.
Comments
Displaying 3 of 3 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
Niyako
Interesting, I think your points are very philosophical. Evolution is not an active force, the main aspect of it being natural selection is why we are here today, without it, our ancestors would all be dead by the flu, or alike. Love is something our psyche developed, and for why? I ponder that a lot...
Evolution does not overdo things, quite the opposite, it is well known it is very much a "good enough" kind of thing. For example, we could be way more efficient, but our bodies were evolved in a way to waste ~80% of our energy.
I will say this, though. Love is not connected to our conscious, To back up my point, other mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, birds, etc all love. Love is an evolutionary "force" (for a lack of better words) for pack-bonding, to help the other...
This makes it seem like anything was, when it's not. Nothing is "meant" to be made -- I think your philosophy ties in with religion a lot.
I have more thoughts, but it's late, and I am spitballing. So sorry for my in-eloquicy
I agree with the fact that nothing was really meant to be created. I also have been told that my beliefs tie in with religion once before so I might need to re-evaluate myself because I do NOT like religion. I am an occultist and I do have quite strict views so that might be where it comes from
I guess when I said ‘overdo’ I moreso meant what I said with evolution/natural selection letting things pass if they don’t explicitly kill us. Our consciousness is bigger than we really need it to be, and it stays that way because it doesn’t kill us. But then that brings the question of if we were really created on this earth for no reason, or if we were meant to experience things on a larger scale like how we already do, which does go into less scientific and more philosophical/spiritual realms of thought. I’m not sure if I prefer the ‘we are strictly meant to reproduce’ or the ‘we were meant to experience things as the universe looking back in on itself’ approach to our lives. I find both equally interesting.
Not trying to argue of course, I’m just explaining myself ^^ I really like talking about this sort of stuff especially when people may disagree
[Edit] also, I see that you mentioned psyche and consciousness as two different things and that love is connected to our consciousness. I think I know what you mean but can you explain that?
by victorisavampire; (edited); Report
1. I recommend to! its very easy to fall into such traps lol
2. makes sense. evolution isn't the most optimal, "But then that brings the question of if we were really created on this earth for no reason, or if we were meant to experience things on a larger scale like how we already do, which does go into less scientific and more philosophical/spiritual realms of thought."
makes it seem like we were created by someone, if I'm honest, as an atheist, we were "created" for no reason. we are, at the end of the day, a lucky chance. I think both perspectives of "reproduction" and "frolicking in fields" equally unrealistic.. though I think the latter is much more healthy to the psyche.
3. I didn't take it as so! side note, fellow E1 wow
4. I might've misspoke(?), I meant to say that love is something our(as in mammals and animals more broadly) we developed during evolution, all animals are at some level of consciousness, us the greatest, yet they all exhibit love, so is love truly apart of OUR high level consciousness? That's how I see it.
by Niyako; ; Report