Hey Jesse

A short while ago a student wrote to me.
He posed these thoughts and asked me to respond.


Is it all about perspective?
People are afraid.
What do people fear? Death. Loneliness.
There is a strong urge for humans to belong to a group. Why?
I think everyone should live alone in the woods for a long while and think. Or not think at all.
Be alone and simply survive. Be very basic.
The closed people should do this.
Hell, I should do this.
I would like to.
What is stopping me?
Many things.

First I believe you are thinking many things at once.
In time you will start to separate these things out into independent ideas. You will start to find answers when you do.

But here are my thoughts...They may seem a little abstract...But here goes...

People need people.

We need each other for survival. There is too much work in a day to accomplish it all. We love our food, clothes, cars, music, art, movies, travel and comforts. They are not possible without the work of many others.

Our world has evolved into a society that divides up the work, sets a value to it - as defined in the market place - and rewards each of us accordingly. As a result we have gone from family units that divided labor by gender role - husband and boys work the fields and hunt, wife and girls gather and tend the home - to labor units - academics, corporate executives, farmers, retail workers, laborers, skilled laborers, police and law enforcement, military and defense, administration and government. Each group has its duties. All are so interdependent that survival is impossible without the contribution of all.

There are very few persons alive today who have the ability to grow their own food and make their own clothes and build their own shelter and protect themselves and keep themselves healthy and...Do all the things we need to do to enjoy the life we live in our cushy world.

We do not share without condition. We do not give each other the fruits of our skills without expecting something in return. We want all the things that we don't have and we need each other to have them. So we are placed in a situation where it is hard to see any alternative other than power.

Even I want to publish and get paid for sharing these ideas.

We use others needs as a means to fulfill our own needs. This is nothing but power - pure and simple.

We have more than physical needs.

We have emotional needs and spiritual needs.

Some of those are defined for us. Some are innate. To understand power we don't need to differentiate the socially constructed needs from the basic human ones. We just accept that they are present and operating. Because a need does not have to be right or correct or natural to be used effectively as power.

The spiritual needs lead us to concern ourselves with that part of us that existed prior to this life and will exist after this life is completed. We attend ourselves to the idea of meaning. What this life means. What we mean. What each experience we have means.

What is the purpose of our existence?

These are questions we are compelled to answer by our very nature. It takes a very strong willed person to avoid these questions all of their lives. Eventually we all ask them. Some of us will embrace them.

The emotional needs usually creep up on us. You can have everything you ever wanted in your physical life, but be lonely and sad. Although it is pretty tough to be ecstatic when you are poor, every rich person will tell you that money does not make you happy. We all want to be loved and appreciated for who we are - not just what we do or what we have.

Again, we can deny this. We can avoid this. But it seems to come to the surface eventually and we are forced to consider what it means. People need the love, affection and appreciation of other people. Both those close to us and those who are strangers to us.

These needs are real and they are used for power.

Sadly it seems that this use of power forms a significant part of our upbringing. We are socialized into this world by having to experience various manifestations of the old "Go Stand In the Corner" punishment. The time out. The go to your room. The No dessert for you. The You're grounded. The You're not my friend anymore. The I don't want you anymore. The You're fired.

All posing a threat of being alone.

Power.

Innate in us is the desire to be with others and be a successful part of the group. Belonging.

Maslow told us a lot about this.

But when you take these two ideas and put them together you create a dilemma which is hard to over come. When you combine the needs we have for other people with the differentiated labor market based society we live in you send a message to every individual. That message is - You better fit in or we won't let you stay and you will die. Play a role in this world - the way it is - or you don't belong with us and you will be outcast.

You must belong or you can't survive.

You can't survive physically. You can't survive emotionally. You can't survive spiritually.

Belong or else.

That is so hard for a baby to accept. Sleep when we sleep. Poop the way we poop. Eat what we eat. Be like us.

Teenagers suffer through. Be like us but be different from others. Be the same but be unique. To be unique often means to reject that which kept you safe for the first 14 years - your family.

Adults give up ideals and dreams. Go to work. Do the job. Bring the money home and make a house that others envy. Have nice lawn. Have a nice car. Have the toys that others envy. Be the same but be more and better than everyone else.

But we are all in the same boat. We are all suffering through the same life path. We are all alone and yet surrounded.

So we try to find some peace.

You will go quietly into a cool northern wilderness evening. And sit with yourself.

That is why prayer, meditation, quiet, resting is part of every religion this world has created.

Because when we sit alone quietly long enough we learn two things.

First - we are not alone. We are all together walking the path.

Second - life is an exhilarating experience that will be nothing more than what we make it.