The social rudder — Our primal desires and fears.

Some food for thought. This is Angela Davis, in 1972, who at the time was considered as a state enemy, a threat to the existing system. Boy am I glad she had the gall to boldly face up to things with reason and wit over emotion!

The clarity in her reasoning still stands today, after four and a half decades. But this is not about Angela.

This is about you and me, this is about us. Our humanity.

Some things are persistently tied to humanity.

The rich do what they can in the name of growth, while the poor suffer what they must.

The powerful grow stronger and more blind in their apathy, and the exploited struggle in agony. Some people brilliantly rise against it.. and many fall prey.

Even today, in between the beautiful movies, film stars and singers and charismatic leaders; even as we become more attuned to be in a state of bliss or being entertained.

The untold and seldom seen happenings of what organized human wickedness does; is not easy to digest and is quite disheartening to comprehend or be aware of in our worldview.

A stark reminder that the world today is crazy because humanity as a whole is more carnally driven than logically.

Media puts out stories that entertain us, singers write songs about love and sex, politicians create various ways to maintain groupism and win people over.

So many of these people cater to our primal desires and fears first, and then wrap around stories and characteristics around it to add in a flavor.

It’s a beautiful and sunny Saturday in what we know as 2017, the year 2017.

How many generations of (in)glorious cultures have passed! Yet mankind seems to keep gravitating back to the same things: wine, women, money, power, possessions, me vs them, mine vs theirs.

Are we really in the dark? Did not Jesus discuss about carnalism? Did not the Greeks advocate stoicism? Altruism, rationalism and so many other ’isms. Today’s ’ism de force is capitalism by and large. I wonder if you’d notice what thought patterns you are personally bound to, just because you were born in this day, age and location.

So many schools of thought, so many people who championed them, yet… we’ve spectacularly revolved around these same variables: the ones that are primal and in action (subtly or overtly) in our own self, in others, and in groups of persons and cultures.

Without education systems devised to help identify and break us out of these universal chains of primal concerns, humans are bound to repeat the same stories with maybe more technologies to help achieve the same goals.

Things to think over this weekend.