Man is a Social Animal… Or is he? How do we know?

Here’s a pessimistic view on society.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

It is this instinct to survive that governs what wild animals do every morning, its what defines the intensity of a Lion, the ferocity of a Snow Leopard and the viciousness of a Rattle Snake. They are driven by their primary feral instinct to survive another day, they live to survive.

We humans, on the other hand, are about much more than just survival. We sorted our survival millenniums ago. We can safely say, as a species, we don’t live to survive, we live to thrive. But what is it that motivates us to live, to thrive. Why do we get up every morning and lead our lives, carry out the daily chores, why do we do it? Whatever we may be doing, why do we feel the need to perform at our best all the time, why do we care so much about the next pay raise, the next promotion, or in startup lingo, the next billion users. What motivates us? Isn’t it the Money, the Fame, the Power ? Now lets not romanticize our motivations into something intangible and bigger, with much more meaning than these ugly minions of Greed.(This is a pessimistic view remember!). But aren’t these, at the bottom of it, just physical manifestations of our utter desire for acceptance or appreciation from fellow beings. Isn’t it all for that look in the eye of the people around us that says ‘Boy! this guy is a big shot’.

But Does it make us social?

One way or the other, we are looking for approval of our actions from our friends, foes, family, our Facebook friends, our Twitter followers, the security guard in the building, the random stranger on the street who secretly reads the funny quote on my shirt and looks away pretending as if he didn’t see anything but laughing out loud inside, because it is that funny. We want to impress that guy with our choice of funny tees. We are scared of taking risks but we kind of like to take risks as well. We want our risks validated, it hurts a lot when we fail, but if someone else thinks that the risk was worth taking, it just cushions the fall, making us that much more determined to come back stronger and take another shot.

But Does it make us social?

We want our punches to be revered and our knock-outs applauded by the crowd, otherwise what the hell are we fighting for any way. As they say, life is just a big stage and we are all just playing our parts. Small actors in the grand play of life. Here’s the irony, we, the actors, are the audience as well. We are living our own roles and at the same time judging everyone else’ performances. Giving them full marks, as well as feeling jealous of them for a scene well acted. Do we? do we ever give them full marks ? How does this arrangement work really ?

If two boxers judged each other during a fight, how would they do it?

Wouldn’t they just keep giving themselves more and more points after every round while getting angrier at the opponent for doing the same thing. Wouldn’t the points system just lose sense in such a scenario. They would feel frustrated and angry, keep hitting and getting hit harder with each passing punch. Some would say, that’s what brings out the best in an athlete, but I think it really just becomes a fist fight to death. It’s more of a dog fight than a boxing match now. A winner-take all; no disqualifications, no holds barred dog fight between two humans. In such times, Man is more intense, ferocious and vicious than any wild animal.

But that makes us just an Animal!

I guess what I am trying to say is, if we really care about a more humane society we should realize that there is no perfect metrics to measure the human in humanity or the social in Man. And the metrics we currently use: Money, Power or Fame have obvious downfalls. They just lose sense when they become the end, rather than the means to do something good. With these tools as our metrics Life just becomes a race to the finish line, but the finish line keeps moving farther as we get closer to it, making us want more and more and more.

We get to see that Man is an animal, sure. Social, not so much.

But what makes us Social then? I don’t know.

What do you think is good metrics to measure the human in humanity or the social in a Man. Love? Glory ? Hope ? Do share.