I believe it is dangerous, naive, and irresponsible to eschew human membership in the animal kingdom. We have used technological advancement to differentiate ourselves from our fellow mammals by cultivating the environment for our purposes. We are able to express emotions, complex ideas, and leave behind a legacy of knowledge. But make no mistake, these adaptations made by our species only differentiate homo sapiens from other species within the animal kingdom: It doesn’t remove us from the kingdom of animals nor give us the sole right of dominion over the earth.
We have lost touch with life’s reality in its most basic and earthly form. We are able to achieve the complex, but the simplicity of our ancestors have been lost. While, I’m not arguing to return our highly developed brain and its ability for thought and logic to purely instinctual urges; I do believe a profound reminiscing of humanity’s beginning needs to occur. I’m not referring to forlorn days of empire building or conquest. I’m referring to a time much further back when our species depended and relied upon one another for the collective existence of the species. While there were great ills and struggles during that period, there was also a great sense of community. Some cultures still practice this simpler way of life today.
There is significant research which suggest modern humanity’s economic practice is not bringing about the desired increase in happiness, despite increased efficiency and productivity. With all of these advancements, are our daily lives truly better off than a millennia ago? Yes, human lives have been prolonged considerably, but has the meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment of those lives actually improved? Is social media truly a better form of bonding than an actual get-together with family and friends? Is it really more important to know what is going-on in Hollywood rather than our neighborhood? Do we even know what our neighbors’ names are? What have we even shared with them? It is this basic need for community which we as a species have forgotten: this basic need to share; this basic need to create real emotional bonds; this basic need to belong to something larger than ourselves. The profit in this return to our animal nature will be measured in smiles and not dollars.
