Evolution and our DNA has wired us – involuntarily, as a matter of our biological survival as live organisms – not to lose favor with our pack, our tribe.
The people-pleasing instinct is an instinct to minimize the chance that our pack will ostracize us and we’ll face predators alone, which means we’ll fail because our biological defenses rely on a united front with others in our pack.
Today, we don’t often face such threats, but DNA rewiring throughout a species takes hundreds of generations, thousands of years or more. Individuals in whom this wiring is abnormal are called “mutants.” Literally. And yet no evolution – zero – happens without the preexistence of mutants.
The pleasing instinct is strong – so strong that our human species has evolved unusually fast. Homo sapiens is a species that’s maybe 1/4 million years old; that’s 250 thousand years. The horseshoe crab’s species is at least 250 million years old – 1000 times older. Even the dinosaurs couldn’t threaten the whole planet as immediately as we do now. Microbes like fungi, bacteria, and viruses cannot end all other life like we can.
Our biological wiring also underlies our dark sides. We don’t need to look deeply for this. If an alien studied the history of our species, they would summarize it in 3 easy letters. W. A. R.
War is fueled by tribalism – our hardwired belief that we are better than “them.” Let’s stick together, no matter whether it involves eradicating other human beings of our own species who have some mutations different than our mutations.
So, there it is. Our most menacing enemy – mutations – is also our greatest hope.
In our DNA is both the capacity to destroy other human beings and indeed the entire world, as well as the capacity to propagate deep compassion. Each of us has both a peacemaker and warlord inside, encoded by invisible double helices. Every species evolves from one original mutant. Choose your mate carefully, but more importantly and predictably, cultivate your own wiring wisely. With less competitive tribalism and self-righteousness, and more adventurous wonderment about mutant otherness.
.
Neil D. 2023-08-07
Feel with Neil 