Thursday, July 24, 2008
human nature
"it's just human nature" is a line from katy perry's "i kissed a girl" chart-topping single. I wanted to point out how she was "curious" and "just" human nature... hmmm, that's sort of underwhelms of our nature..how much do we actually blame on human naure (good and bad) let's see, curisoty is one, desire (not lust, but sheer desire for what we can't have) and umm, let's see... forgetfullness somehow shows that we're "only human"we all mistakes and that makes us human... do agree or disagree that human nature is overmarketed and poorly understood??
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I think human nature is extraordinarily misunderstood...unappreciated...taken for granted...let me see if I can get to a better short descriptor. The reason I feel this way is that my own experience has been that I've lived much of my life thinking humans "should" be different, and this process started with my self. I thought I should be more kind, more successful, more rebellious, more free thinking, more conforming, more radical, more conventional...more athletic, thinner, prettier, better, smarter, faster, wealthier, more 'together' more____________. The thing is that that idea of myself was based on the belief that human nature is malleable down to it's root and that any issue I was having was due to my not being enough _________. This meant I was consistently very hard on myself, and that the same beliefs i had for myself I also then imposed on most people and/or myself at the same time (not you Lauren!). Mind you not everyone, but most people received my judgment of they should be nicer, smarter, more understanding, more athletic, more liberal...whatever ______ and then I wouldn't have issues with them or me. I thought I should be able to change my human nature such that I no longer had glaring faults in _____ area and then my life would 'feel better.'
What took me so long to understand though is that we all have this 'human nature.' We do all have desire, we all have pain. We all want things in our lives or don't want things in our lives that we do or don't have... It doesn't matter if you are the richest or poorest person on the planet, you want to be loved, you want to love, you don't want to suffer. What took me so long to see is that those things are our true human nature (in my opinion--IMO). When i look at myself and others this way, it creates an incredibly different experience and compassion for myself and others. Bob is being a jerk to me because he wants to be loved and he is afraid of his suffering. Bob is being nice to me because he wants to love and be loved and he doesn't want to suffer and maybe he wants the same for me. I am sad today because I don't feel loved or loving and I am suffering. I am being a jerk today because I want to be loved and am suffering. When I approach all the encounters in my life with the perspective that everyone's human nature creates this experience for them, it makes so many things less of a big deal and it makes it easier to love myself and others. If I get sad or mad or whatever i can just remember that there are MILLIONS of other people having that same experience in their own way at the same time. If I am happy or grateful I can remember the same thing. If someone bothers me or I bother them i can just remember we both are suffering in some way at that moment and we just want it to end...and that there are millions of other people experiencing the same thing at that moment. That to me is human nature. It's not a cop out, it's a way in...a way in to not making other people's experience or your own experience of suffering mean something is wrong with you or them, it's just our experience much of our time on the planet. Hungry, tired, sad, stressed, bored, loneley, whatever...we all feel it sometime. Knowing that allows you let it go and empowers you to choose how to relate to that experience with understanding and hope. It's just what we experience...like sunny days, rainy will probably follow, and like rainy days, sunny days will follow too. We can use this to love ourselves and others as we are, human nature and all. I think the most compassionate and happy people are the ones that can see through this experience of changing emotions and feelings...passed our messed up expressions of wanting to be loved... and see others and themselves as our true human nature, which is a desire for goodness and an end for suffering for all.
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