2006-03-27 - 4:23 p.m. The Men in the Woods I would say that the human experience is for the most part a sad one. However, I think the human mind is mostly programmed to forget the sad, and focus on the pleasurable. The reason I say the human experience is mostly sad is because we aren�t typically in the state of happiness. Instead I think we are motivated to move towards that state of happiness by evolutionary processes. Things that are good for us, typically, cause us pleasure. Its said that our tongues enjoy food that is sweet and higher in carbs because those items provide the most nutrients for our body. Were we wild animals a loaded baked potato and steak would help us live a lot longer than a California Roll. However we aren�t in the wild so to stay thin we not only have to exercise (since we don�t hunt for food) but we also have to eat things that taste worse (healthier for you). The human, I believe, is animal. Animals in general have only a few things on their minds. 1) Eat 2) Reproduce 3) Sleep 4) Survive. Humans no longer have to really worry about 1) Eating 2) Sleeping 3) Surviving. And honestly, 4) Reproducing isn�t really a problem either. Instead we have to actually go against our nature and eating less and have safe sex. We also don�t hunt or even perform manual labor much anymore. So does that me society encourages us to go against our nature? Does that mean we are trying to avoid the animal instincts inside of us? Maybe. Maybe that�s why we are sad and why we dream so much of things greater. Maybe that�s why we focus on the good in our memories and weed out the bad? There are these men off the highway who live in tents they have created from trash. They steal bikes and fix them and sell them. They live in a loop of the highway and during winter and fall you can see their tents through the empty trees. These men, by all rights, cannot be happy. I fear them because they also must be feral and I don�t understand that. They have lived their for years�on that small plot of land�and in the middle of a growing commercial area they remain � thieves and squatters. Are they happy? | |||||||||||
