Scientists say, most human drives are without conscience. They do not care about long-range effects. They seek only immediate gratification. Modern knowledge of brain realism also accepts that consciousness is very localized. It instinctively being a reactive mode facility, cares only for short term utility and worth.
If conscience exists, it exists in the intellect of the human. To be human is to allow the intellect to preside over the utility and worth of every important action-behaviour over the dimensions of time, space, people and processes. It is this necessary intellectual control of the instincts which makes a culture successful. We see contemporary cultures in drift and flux because majority of people are behaving true to their instincts, without much intellectual control and conscience. And, this intellectual control is a learned function and is called self-discipline, to over-ride less desirable instinctive behaviour.
That is why in most advanced contemporary cultures, where liberalism has unleashed uncontrolled instinctive drives of humanity, sans any intellectual self-control, the governments of the day have to spend huge moneys on police, jails and other emergency measures. Most modern cultures are failed cultures as the level of self-control in people in personal and societal spheres are very little and diminishing fast.
One such powerful instinctive drive of humanity, which has shattered most modern liberal cultures, because of ever reducing intellectual self-control is sex. This over-encompassing sex drive has lost its evolutionary role way back and it surely looks like an obstructive vestige of the obsolete evolution. Still, it dominates the human thinking and worldview in biggest possible way, overriding even survival sanity.
Evolution, at one point of time, many millions years back, switched from non-sexual reproductive procedures to sexual one as it had definitive benefits for species survival and genetic excellence. Evolution embedded sexual drive in neural wirings to ensure that human excelled over other species. This evolution then created gender roles and suitable physiological as well as neural differences were created in males and females. This scheme of things required that men always looked for sex and women used sex as selection tool for best mating option.
Things have changed in modern cultures. Evolution’s game plan is no more valid and no more required as traditional gender roles have changed and in liberal cultural scenario, sex has lost its old and tested evolutionary purpose. Moreover, in modern living, humanity does not have the old challenges of survival and species proliferation, as we are many times more in numbers on this planet and have managed to live quite long. We do not need to go into details as everyone knows, how modern cultures have placed sex in a rather demeaning and diminutive imagery as fun thing, thrill-tool and time-pass activity, rather than a reproductive tool.
In modern civilization, where success of cultures depends on how intellectual self-control is exercised over instinctive drives, just the inverse is happening. Sex was once an instinctive drive, designed for species needs millions of years back. Now that modern human life-living situation and overall cultural advancement has made those needs obsolete, what we need is intellectual self-control over this powerful sex drive, which has lost its primitive usage. We need to accept sex in a totally different light and perspective.
Though, it is a long and complicated scientific explanation as how our brains have been designed in long years of evolution; we just have to know and accept that unlike other human organs, human brain is not a single organ. It is rather a cooperative of many parts, evolved during different times of evolution, with each part being an addition to the old one, not a replacement. Therefore, what we need to accept is that our brain is not doing this favour of intellectual discretion to us. It still has the primitive brain, over which the new parts have piled up. That is why our brain still has the primitive instincts and drives. It also has modern logical parts but brain is not doing any automatic pruning for us. We have to exercise learnt and nurtured intellectual control over our instincts. Both instincts and intellect are part of our brain mechanism but this self-control thing works well only when we have evolved a higher consciousness. Instinctive behaviours are auto-mode, intellectual initiatives are not. Therefore, the intellectual self-control needs to be inculcated and persevered through conscious practice. This presupposes quality lonely time with self.
No doubt, human inventiveness and human intellectual prowess are potent mechanism, which can engender so much novelty out of even a waste. Sex however is such a beautiful human experience. With applied human intellect, modern humanity and cultures surely can turn this obsolete sex drive into a highly beautiful, artistic and worthy entity.
There is this very subtle difference in cognition regarding so many life-living realisms, which produce two extreme causalities – extremely beneficial or extremely calamitous. This difference in cognition is about how we hit a poise of higher purpose between tangible as well as intangible elements of some realism. This needs to be applied in the domain of sex. The tangibles of sex and physical intimacies have a very limited purpose, which are now evolutionary vestiges. We surely do not need sex in its primeval tangible form. However, the intangibles of sex are unlimited and they offer us so many sunny shades.
The intangible elements of nurturance, mutuality, intimacy, cooperation, compassion, commitment, trust, etc are all very beneficial requirements for overall wellness of we all and all these elements must be made to ride on the tangibility of sex. Evolution has given us a vehicle, a medium, but what we carry on this vehicle is now the role of our intellect and higher consciousness.
Moreover, utility of intelligence must be accepted in its holism. Everything tangible has something intangible, which defines and architects the domain of its utility and purpose. Similarly, all intangibles have a natural tendency to get associated with something tangible, to find expression and utility. This cyclicality or call it causality of sorts is a very crucial learning for life-living wellness. Let us understand it...
It is said, a sharp weapon, like a sword is never kept bare; it has to be covered by some hard material mould. It is like; intelligence should never be allowed to remain bare and uncovered. And the ideal cover is a hardened resolve of compassion. If not, then both swords and intelligence are calamitous for both wielder as well as others...!
The other aspect of the idea is – the tangibility of sword is value-neutral and its worth becomes dangerous, if value-neutral sword is left uncovered and bare. A sword’s tangibility itself presupposes cutting and bruising. This tangibility automatically draws an intangibility of a subconscious mind, which likes to ‘cut-through’. That is why this intangibility has to be covered by another intangibility of compassion, to neutralize the auto-intangibility of the tangibility of a sword.
Similarly, intelligence also has this subconscious intangibility to ‘cut-through’. The other-way round is also equally calamitous. The intangibility of subconscious ego and innate instinct of ‘one-up-manship’ often rides on the tangibility of intelligence. That is why there is this need for conscious covering of intelligence with the intangibility of compassion.
There is no doubt that the world is becoming a better place to live as people are becoming better endowed, largely because of their better and greater intelligence. As life-living becomes tougher and more complex, intelligence surely bails us out. It is rather good news that overall, people across the globe are becoming smarter. However, intelligence itself lands people in larger trouble. Intelligence has this innate tendency to align with tangibility of more conflict and confusion. That is why, for modern life-living wellness, this intelligence needs to be covered up with this golden intangible of compassion.
Scientists duly warn that humanity as a race has become critically intelligent and this is the seed of possible extinction of race. The reason is – intelligence breeds more and larger conflicts within a race and that ‘cuts-through’ sanity and poise. That is why this sanity-call that swords and intelligence should never be left uncovered and bare.
Intelligence, no doubt is this effective tool to ‘cut-through’... to cut through troubles of life but as this tangibility of cutting-through exercise is egoistic and competitive, we all need to ensure that this intelligence is rarely left open, bare and exposed. This must be covered up with love and compassion, and especially with objectivity of resolve.
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