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10 March 2003 (Monday): what are we hungry for?

Earlier tonight I spent a few hours in the home of a new friend. He is a musician and his wife is an artist; apart from the main house there are two buildings on their plot of land, a greenhouse and a studio. Instead of a lawn, they're tending a field of wildflowers. Sometimes, he said, the grass grows as high as your nose. Sometimes it's a hard life. The money comes and it goes and sometimes it's gone a long while. When I arrived the smell of dinner was still in the house, faintly, drifting ghosts too pale for me to guess what food might have been on the table.

McDonough and Braungart's Cradle to Cradle has been tucked under my arm all day, and even when I'm not reading it murmurs in my thoughts. Efficiency...or effectiveness? How do you measure the success of a human system? What problems are we solving? What are we hungry for?

Control, I would guess. All of history is a progression of becoming no-longer-at-the-mercy-of-X. It began with understandable struggles for survival: protection from harsh weather, management of food supply. We dream of eradicating all human diseases, the last trace of malnutrition, the threat of violence from each others' tribes. And subtler, more trivial annoyances: we aspire to have the full range of choices at all times, shaping our little world-corners to our individual liking. Lawns in the desert, mangoes in Iceland.

But I think we're also hungry for something else...we can't pinpoint it, but it keeps us restless and unfulfilled. There's a need for change, for wildness, for an unknown to explore. Maybe it's merely a corollary of control: the search for something to control, a beast to master. But maybe it's an appreciation for what is beyond our reach, a need to always have something take us by surprise. After a point, that which is manufactured and tailored to our needs is no longer satisfying.

How to reconcile the driving force behind civilization -- the desire to control -- with the idea that we should live in the world we inhabit? How do we design ourselves into our ecosystem such that we engage in commensalism and mutualism, rather than parasitism?

Nature already knows what to do with us; we're an experiment, one of trillions, and if we fail it will wipe us out and try something else, invent another organism to feed off the mess we've made. What fascinates me about the human species is that it is doomed to failure -- if it continues to operate in blind self-interest, the way all other species do. No other organism is required to take the entire system into account when it acts. So far as we know, no other organism is even aware of the entire system. (Do hawks know they're preventing grassland depletion by preying on rodents?) What's required of human beings is not merely adapation or evolution; we're being asked to play Nature -- or, if you will, to play God. And no one's ever pulled off that stunt before.

Take environmental economics out of the picture and ask the question again, on a personal, psychological level. I suppose the answer is happiness. Success; freedom; people or places or things to love and ample time with which to love them. A banishment of whatever demons and oppressors are keeping us from that prized state of existence. Control over our own destiny.

There's that word again: control.

And again there's a restlessness, a sneaking suspicion that wildness, something out of our hands, is necessary. We want the thrill of uncertainty when we lean close for the first kiss. We want stories of impossible odds, strength born out of terrible adversity. We want assurance that there is such a thing as a mistake, that it is possible to fail, to hurt, to die. We don't want to play the game if it's rigged.

I think that may be our challenge as much as anything: to acknowledge the value of pain, even as we strive for happiness. Even as we work desperately to create peace, there is a certain dark beauty to war. Even in Nature, our beloved model of perfection, snakes do eat baby birds. The objective is not to eliminate all suffering. It is to bring sorrow and joy into balance.

I don't know how the hell we're going to do this, but I hope we can.

posted by enjelani @ 09:02 PM PST

Replies: 12 comments

now *that's* profound... I don't know that I could add anything meaningful without needing to think on it a while. Perhaps a long while.

Suspended in wonder...

posted by m. mellow @ 10 03 2003 11:55 PM PST

i am quite surprised that you automatically assumed the continuity of Civilisation as an on-going entity. i tend to think Civilisations not as immortal, but as mortals (because all Civilisations have come to an end in human experience, ours no exception). and even if they do not, because the hand of entropy is pointed to one direction only i.e deterioration. and even if we are unaware of entropy, then surely we must be aware of the imminence of death. so, we are doomed anyway. with that said, assuming we adopt a materialist ethic, then our position is incurable. therefore, the real question is whether one subscribes to Naturalism or Supernaturalism (certain consequences follow for each). i suspect that there is an answer to this puzzle. it is such: in our human experience, (almost) all our instincts can be fulfilled. if we are hungry, then it is because there is such a thing called food. thirst, we have water. but this longing that you mentioned (for something else, more visceral, more real), some have argued as a basis for the after-life. i agree. the importance of getting to the bottom of this, i cannot overstate. keep searching.

posted by bk @ 11 03 2003 04:54 AM PST

I think it is neither uncertainty nor adversity nor pain we seek, but challenge. I think it's because every live thing wants to grow. If you have a talent, the talent wants to grow. If you have an alive, active mind, the mind wants to grow. If you don't feed it, it hurts -- but if you starve it to death, it hurts no more. You become as happy as someone who never had a mind, or a talent, in the first place. And it's the same with the capacity to handle a challenge.

posted by beefeater @ 11 03 2003 12:03 PM PST

trackback emulator 1.0:

i responded in a post of my own:

http://www.balanceinmotion.net/blog/archives/000669.php

*grins*

posted by zach @ 11 03 2003 02:18 PM PST

bk: entropy, yes. it's a fractal existence: civilizations have life spans, just as individuals do. our planet, our solar system, all are born and all will die. nothing's static or eternal. even if we "save the world" and preserve ecological harmony for millenia at a time, the place still crumbles in the end. good health merely prolongs the enjoyment of a limited lifetime.

which begs the question: so how do we enjoy this?

posted by enjelani @ 11 03 2003 02:35 PM PST

procreate wildly until we overrun the earth?

oh wait... that's what we are doing. :)

posted by echeng @ 11 03 2003 04:16 PM PST

meet me at the pub

posted by theo @ 11 03 2003 09:03 PM PST

an open system will maintain its structure far from equilibrium, so long as it has a steady flow of energy and its environment stays within certain operational parameters. if its environment strays into the extremes of heat, cold, fluid shearing, whatever ... the system will either break apart or re-organize spontaneously into a new structure: one which is capable of maintaining itself in the extreme environment.

sounds like evolution, no?

i suppose you might argue that those points of extreme duress at which evolution happens are also opportunities for progress. so it sounds like your longing for change, for danger, is a longing for the opportunity to evolve.

posted by zach @ 12 03 2003 10:58 PM PST

The downside of evolving is that it only does your offspring any good...

Within the framework of evolution, it is easy to make the argument that those organisms that are predisposed to learning, doing, and being challenged (i.e., getting out and about), were statistically the survivors because they interacted with their environment more and had more opportunity to seek competitive advantage and reproduction. If you observe that humans interpret their own behavioral tendencies (feelings, desires, emotion, action, etc) in a human experiential framework, masking the underlying origin of those human tendencies, then you Could make the argument that pondering the greatest profound depths of the human condition is merely observing built in, perhaps high-order, tendencies for survival and indeed is nothing profound at all.

But coupling reductionism with systems science in this way kinda takes the fun out of being human, doesn't it? I suppose someone has to do that angle of research... Nonetheless, I would assert that regardless of how you may choose analyze the human condition (chemistry or spirituality), we do undeniably exist as crazy, emotional, depressed, excited, terrible, wonderful, and inexplicably glorious creatures. The question is - we've got this great platform, how do we enjoy it? I think Eric has the right idea... ;-)

posted by Bill @ 13 03 2003 02:48 AM PST

Bill-

hmm ... yeah. i guess i left out the fact that i view evolution as profound, as in fact sort of - The Point - . i use the term broadly, as a catch-all for growth, progress, etc ... i actually do take it as more of a spiritual term, if you like, than a scientific one. it's never been strictly genetics, it's certainly not simply Darwinistic in the popularized sense.

and survival is not necessarily a mundane task anymore: if, as i suspect, there's no other way to survive our self-destructive tendencies than some collective enlightenment or at least maturation ... then that's how we must adapt to our changing environment, or we fall apart. i thought your point about evolution only benefitting your offspring was kinda ironic, since i see that very thing -- sustainability -- as absolutely critical to our continued survival.

and i agree totally with your description of us. and i don't see my description as incompatible. i agree with the real thinkers in this area that some principles of systems science are really broadly applicable. fractals happen, man, as Enji pointed out.

it's like ... we've gotten past the physical barriers to survival. the points of evolutionary divergence have organized themselves to bring us this far, and i'd venture to say that we could all survive quite comfortably here if we chose to do so.

but with the advent of self-awareness and free will, we seem to be creating our own, higher-order opportunities to evolve. we must now tackle the more abstract barriers to our dissipation. fear, greed, ignorance, self-loathing, forlornness. those things and their complements are the threads of the human condition. i see no reason to treat those as separate from the grand fabric of life, along with earlier and continuing struggles for survivial and meaning. higher-order? sure. but the principles of evolution still apply. so i sense no loss of richness in describing the human condition in terms of networks and systems.

(uh ... but i have to admit to lacking a "formal" education about what i'm talking about half the time. so take it as you will! ;)

and to be sure, a description is not an experience. so. i should probably stop talking now. and go ... um, yeah: procreate wildly.

posted by zach @ 13 03 2003 01:59 PM PST

Zach - I think you've got it right when you say that we are "longing for change, for danger...for the opportunity to evolve."

I think we really are hungry for the opportunity to evolve. As much as we strive for stability and equilibrium, I think that we want the wildness more because we know that the only time we've got real stability is when we're dead.

So we push ourselves to ever higher aspirations, creating chaos along the way so that we might recreate ourselves better in its wake. As ever higher levels of order emerge, we create ever more intricate (fractal, if you will) patterns of chaos in which to steep ourselves.

We are, in a way, evolving the very mechanism of evolution. Each rung of higher level order we climb, we evolve evolution itself another step.

Hmmmm...I'm starting to lose my own point.

That wild procreation is sounding good. If only I could get in on that...

posted by wink @ 14 03 2003 01:37 AM PST

At the risk of bringing this wonderful metaphysical exchange in a darker direction, we shouldn't forget the more anthropogenic angle of enji's original post.

I just don't hold out as much hope that human beings in the western world have quite the predilection toward challenge and advancement as is represented here. You're all more intelligent and more worldly than your average citizen. You're aware of our current state within the ecosystem in which we live. But if we're talking about things on the level of the evolution of a species, we have to consider the entirety of it, even if we're just talking about American life.

As determined as some people are toward advancement, the bulk of them are more inclined to seek out something else, which I believe is far from challenge or a need for control; it is comfort. Fear certainly rules a lot of the collective public mindset. So much of the human condition isn't about evolving, it's about surviving. People don’t care to learn beyond what serves their immediate interest. In the nonwestern world, there is none of this notion of a hunger for challenge. They have challenge thrust upon them and their effort is to survive it.

But I assume that enji is simply discussing life as a human being living in the United States, since not all of the world is at the same level she suggests. Here, challenge is lessened and therefore, evolution is stunted. So I'm not sure humanity in this hemisphere is evolving. Evolution comes from a response to condition, as has been suggested here. But what is the challenge in the western world? A better career? A fairer socio-economic structure? These things are desired, but are they necessary?

I'm not sure what my point is, but I felt compelled to bring this all down to a human level, if only for a moment.

posted by jim @ 17 03 2003 11:05 PM PST