What's good is survival

My first couple of posts here have been dedicated to the evils associated with the survival imperative but it's clear that there is also 'good' to come from the basic human instinct as well.

'Good' on the surface anyway.

What are ‘good’ traits, values, virtues, emotions and/or actions?

Selflessness
Forgiveness
Cooperation
Generosity
Altruism
Sympathy
Empathy
Charity
Friendship
Love

The list goes on………………………….


While the vast majority will look at people who display these characteristics with great respect and admiration, they only look at a veneer of the true person. What drives people to display the above emotions and traits? Most will not have even considered this in any great detail. Most just assume a person is ‘good’ because that is their personality.

People are ‘good’ people because that is their inner nature…….

However, by only scratching the surface of this superficial façade it is easy to see that the true motivation for all ‘good’ action is, in the end, a means to satisfy the basic human survival imperative.

Let me take one example, love.

What is the point of love? Why do humans have this emotion? Why have the chemicals and deeply ingrained sociopsychocultural drives made us have this feeling of ‘love’.

Most, I dare say, consider this to be just a natural feeling we get when we really like someone. A state of mind where you give all to another human, or totally open your being to another that makes you feel naked and vulnerable. These are all superficial concepts that only just scrape the surface of what ‘love’ is.

‘Love’ is nothing more than a means by which humans are drawn to each other for the purpose of copulation. ‘Love’ holds us together long enough that we may have children, care for them, and allow them to go on their path to survival and have their own children that will allow them to survive. Pure and simple. Anyone who believes otherwise is destined for a failed and/or painful relationship. It is only by fully understanding this truth that individuals who are ‘in love’ can engineer their relationship to ensure that the love lasts for as long as possible in order to maintain the happiness of the moment.

You can discuss each of the other ‘virtues’ I listed above in the same manner and come to the same conclusion.

All any of us what to do is ultimately survive.

Realising the basic instinct of the human being that drives our every action can be life defining.