Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature Archives - Page 2 of 2

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Where does humanity’s desire indeed lie? With how society is progressing, have humans attained what they need for satisfaction? Or have they veered far from true happiness?

The world is immensely different now than how it was, say, five or ten years ago. Society has continuously sought and achieved developments, working to advance technologies and communities in hopes of easing and improving people’s lives. But if one stops to look around, even just a moment, are lives significantly better? Or have people desired to achieve more than they can handle, biting off more than they can chew?

Regarding the discussion of humanity’s desire, nothing comes before happiness. It’s the pinnacle of human needs, which they constantly aim to appease and look for in every endeavor. Whatever they do, they hope the result gives them happiness and contentment. However, the longer they seek it, the more they get confused about what genuinely provides it. This happiness gets lost in translation, blurred by the numerous opportunities and resources provided by society.

The Happiness Encompassing Humanity’s Desire

In the book by Chet Shupe entitled Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness, the author established that humanity’s desire for survival has always been connected with happiness. Humans don’t only need to survive; they must also find happiness. However, humans have mistakenly sought this in knowledge, mistaking satisfaction for happiness.

They believe that happiness is found in the success of their developments and technology, that they’re happier when buildings become taller machinery eases work, or when the latest gadgets drop one after the other. However, Chet Shupe defines this as a misconception, believing none convey the true definition of happiness. This might as well be a satisfaction to see the result of people’s hard work, but it’s not genuine happiness.

Throughout this journey of constantly developing and advancing as a civilization, people have forgone to fulfill humanity’s desire. Instead, they’ve repressed how they genuinely feel in exchange for this false sense of survival and happiness.

It’s no question that technology has made lives better. Things have become easier to handle and more accessible due to the continuous advancements in society. Technology has made resources accessible to people from all walks of life. But in doing so, they might have overlooked that development is making life progressively faster, forcing people to juggle tasks and peace. Although technology has inexplicably improved society, it has made people forget what truly matters.

It’s Not in Knowledge That People Thrive in Happiness

These developments brought about by accumulated knowledge may have helped people secure material needs. But it doesn’t fulfill what they genuinely want. Regardless of how efficient life has become because of machines and technology, it won’t be half as fulfilling without connection.

Humans are social beings. It’s in humanity’s desire, their emotional heritage, to seek comfort and contentment in emotional connections. They may be blinded in feeling satisfaction through societal developments. But they will only achieve genuine happiness through deep emotional intimacy. Material developments and abundance might have aided their survival, but connection and intimate interaction with each other lead them to survival and happiness.

This connection would be easy to satisfy if people don’t have other needs. However, civilization and its laws enclose people’s decisions, reshaping what people should enjoy.

In today’s civilization, happiness occupies the lowest bar for humanity’s desire. With the need for success, landing high-paying careers is typically prioritized regardless of whether they provide happiness. Instead of seeking fulfillment in emotional connection, they’re left to find gratification elsewhere. This is where accumulating knowledge and the satisfaction derived from continuous societal development come in.

Although they don’t provide genuine happiness, people constantly seek them out because, for the very least, they’re a stand-in for the connection they can’t proactively seek.

Love and Happiness in the Wrong Places

This misplaced humanity’s desire for advanced knowledge doesn’t contribute to what truly matters. People shouldn’t seek progress but rather real contentment through happiness and experiencing love. The more they believe that happiness can be found in this progressiveness, the more humanity’s desire becomes insatiable, always seeking more.

People’s growing love for knowledge has made them less after true wisdom, which would make their lives flourish more. Instead of development and progression, love and experience are the primary elements to help achieve balance and harmony in the world. They’re what people need to survive longer and live happier lives. People aren’t drowning because of a lack of resources but because they’re spending their energy and time on the wrong priorities. Humans didn’t evolve because of civilization. They grew because of the community and connection they’ve built with each other.

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi

Did humanity make a colossal mistake when it decided to evolve from how it once was? Chet Shupe takes on how human nature has changed and developed over time in his book “Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature.”

No one can pinpoint the exact turnaround that led to humanity’s road to evolution. From primitive beings who only lived by instinct and discovered the simple joys of igniting a fire for the first time. Old folks would say, “Life was way simpler back then.”

What would life be like if humans had not created and imposed the intricacies of communication called language? How would we go on about our day if we weren’t required to be functional members of society, working our backs off capitalism?

Chet Shupe’s book emphasizes living in the present, erasing all traces of anxiety. The book also describes how language changed everything and manifested into a monotonous lifestyle we cannot escape.

The price of evolution

As history depicted, early primitive humans didn’t have specific rules and systems to follow. They go along with whatever life in nature has to offer. Food and shelter were the only basic needs that even we modern-day people prioritize.

There needs to be proof of when the interest in the future began. Still, after humans gained knowledge and used it to their advantage, that’s where civilization rose at the cost of blood and several other tragedies.

Human transformation collectively manifested in several ways – from the carvings of cave dwellers to the early civilization in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. These civilizations became a catastrophe to the once carefree way of life, creating law and order. Along with that concept comes the price of disregarding such rules, such as the concept of “punishment.”

Literature and language were gifts that enabled man to walk the Earth and become intellectually superior to all other creations of the Earth. However, it came with various negative attributes like exploitation and greed. Those things led humanity into a series of disasters, whether natural, economic, or psychosocial.

How humans led themselves to the road of worry

Ever since man learned to read and write, we’ve had an unpleasant relationship with the future as we tend to look down on people who don’t have a clear and decided lot; and people who choose to live in the moment are often viewed with disdain.

The idea of not being able to plan for what’s to come and not guaranteeing tomorrow became one of the worst fears known to humans.

Untangling the thread of worrying about the future

It will take a lifetime for some people to unlearn the rigid structures set by society. The abilities we gained after being gifted with language may have given us ways to safeguard ourselves for the long term.

However, that’s not what we were primarily designed to live. Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature by Chet Shupe shows us how the rise of civilization over time destroys happiness. It delves deep into detail about how the covert idea of future stability and security makes life lose all its meaning.

With progress came destruction, and it doesn’t have to pertain to the inevitable “end of the world .” It can mean the constant weight of anxiety, loneliness, and desperation. These things can make people search for endless ways to be happy.

The human evolution from learning the basics of language may have increased our capacity to do many things. At the same time, it degraded our emotional intelligence and ability to have empathy. Living in the moment induces anxiety for many of us since we were groomed to think that if we don’t prepare now, we’ll be sorry later.

Chet Shupe: author and whistle-blower

Chet Shupe, out of the urgency to look into people’s connection and true nature, was born out of unity. The author goes on a journey to rediscover the wisdom of beauty and the knowledge of humanity. After suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder, Shupe lived a life of hardship and went through treatments.

Despite what happened to him, Chet Shupe thought that life made sense somehow. Due to his extraordinary experience, he began writing about medical treatments for the brain. Chet Shupe realized while writing about brain dysfunction, and he discovered that there’s also a long-running cultural dysfunction.

As a result, he tackled the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and psychosocial aspects of how humans used their intelligence to their advantage, but at the expense of simple joys. The constant pursuit of happiness became the author’s main objective in this book.

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