I ask once again; what do you think is the goal of your life? For a moment I want to you to think differently.
Humour me, for a minute. Assume my position first, and you could end up getting convinced.
Let us reorient the goal of human life. Epigenetics has shown us that a species or a class of species can, and does have a purpose other than survival and procreation, within a larger eco-system.
If I reorient the human goal to collective evolution, the entire context changes.
Evolution into what? If humans have conquered and colonized the earth to such a stupendous degree, what are we supposed to evolve towards now? Many of us wonder about these ideas as we watch and make innumerable superhero and mutant movies. We are constantly fascinated by the future of human evolution, are we not? So if humans have conquered the planet and survival threats are gone, this must be the end of any physical mutation. Right? Then what kind of mutation would happen from here?
Ok, tell me this; if leading an increasingly comfortable, safe, luxurious life is the end goal of human existence why does existential dissatisfaction plague many men? Why is life safe and comfortable, yet not happy and fulfilling?
Could the evolutionary process be taking us to another level of existence, where unhappiness, suffering and pain are part of the paradigm, the impetus for further mutation? Could suffering and evil, along with meaning and purpose, fit together into a model for further human evolution? Could we humans transcend our limitations, not through technology, but through the natural feedback model that nature has provided us? Why not?
So what would be the goal of this collective evolution?
The highest ideal of life might be evolution into a post-human, supra-human state. Of rising above the human condition. Of rising above suffering through suffering, by not avoiding it. Into a state of unbroken, uncaused bliss. Uncaused and unbroken because nothing would cause it and nothing would mar it.
If your re-framed the inherent goal of life, you would arrive at a different logic.
But then, you could ask, how can everyone be forced to adopt this same goal of evolution for their lives?
Well, because this evolution has biological foundations, it is happening in spite of you. It is the underpinning of your life, the program that runs in the background of your life, whether you are aware of it or not.
In the context of epigenetics, then:
a) Environmental challenges provide the impetus for evolution.
Suffering could be the impetus for evolution into higher states of being. We are placed in adverse, ‘evil’ conditions to creatively discover skills to deal with them and eventually transcend them. Armed with these new skills, we break the limitations of our own possibilities to reach hitherto unknown levels of existence. Of being.
b) An external trigger can unleash a quantum leap in mutation, it may not always be piecemeal.
What we call gratuitous, undeserved evil could be the external trigger for a fast track to a higher state of existence. Put under extremely stressful circumstances, we are forced to innovate, to stretch our potentials. The solution to a problem rarely comes at the level at which it was created. You would have to rise above the level to find solutions, and in a very short time.
c) Evolution does not occur by random mutation, in fact it is a focused response to an external challenge.
Treating suffering as what is really is, a tool, to respond to a challenge and transcend it.
d) A species, class of species may have an aim, a function beyond its survival imperative, within a larger Eco-system. This conception moves beyond the ‘survival of the fittest’ ideology.
Comfortable survival may not be the goal of human existence. The evolution into a post-human, supra-human state by rising above and transcending all suffering could be.
e) Evolution is like a self propagating, self organising, self-referring feed-back loop. It learns and resets.
Evolution might have a mind of its own. Why not? The process by which babies are conceived and born have no inputs or help from you except for conception, does it? It knows where to go. It is a self -evolving biological software. There are countless such examples in biology where teleology can be spoken of.
Suffering may thus be a part of the self- referring feedback loop of evolution.
You will have to evolve, it is your specie imperative, sooner than later. Sooner than later, you will see suffering as a tool in your toolbox, because that ‘seeing’, that realization too is a biological impulse.
An evolutionary impulse. An evolutionary imperative.
Suffering has been used to break the shackles of limitations, to achieve what might not have been achieved in other ways. W. Mitchell, was once, at the peak of fitness and health, a cable car gripman, guiding people up the hills of San Francisco. He would have remained just that, not knowing new horizons of success, had it not been for two successive, horrifying accidents. Two excruciating personal tragedies later, in which he suffered 65% burns on his body and was paralysed from waist down, he has become a millionaire businessman, a motivational speaker, a hall of fame inductee, and the mayor of a small town in the United States.
In his own words, about his unbelievable success after such debilitating tragedies,” I am an ordinary man who was put into extraordinary circumstances”.
In the short term, what happened to Mitchell appears like an unspeakable tragedy. Undeserved, you may scream and sympathise with him. However, if nothing as bad had happened, he would still have remained a cable car gripman, he himself confesses. The creator of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, has famously said, at a Harvard commencement speech, “Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive… and so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
So why should life make you cosy and comfortable now when you could be greater than who you are today? This could seem like inspirational psycho-babble, but I urge you to stay for further blogs to discover how important this idea actually is.
Pertinent to your life, each one of you. I promise that.
These examples are not truly representative of the kind of ‘Evolution’ I want to exemplify, and I fear that they could actually minimize its true meaning. I fear, even as I give these examples, that my intent for evolution could be reduced to some psychological rationalisation. But no, I do not mean that. I am limited to these examples which are yet of a lower level than what I am trying to express. My inability to describe it exactly the way it is comes from a cognitive limitation where I do not have the adequate vocabulary. Language falls short. I can use a metaphor at best, and these examples serve as metaphors for the idea, and good ones! This idea that suffering is the doorway to evolution. The idea that making yourself only cosy and comfortable might not be the essence of life, not in your best interest. Not in your best interest, not in life’s plan for you, for the world, for the human specie.
If you knew that there was more to your evolution, to your biological evolution, would they not want to reach there? What if I tell you that you can become superhumans within and of yourselves? Then if suffering was the portal to reach this higher state, would you grudge it as much? If you knew that there could be a higher version of you, and no, not the technologically enhanced, cyborg like trans-human, would you not wish for that? If the suffering in life was a tool to achieve that higher level, to actualise your highest possibility, would you mind it so much?
Maybe not.
Maybe we just don’t know, so we think all this suffering is random, mindless and cruel. Maybe, there is a method to the randomness, to the madness, to the cruelty. Maybe.
So is there really such a higher version of ourselves, a higher state which is the evolutionary goal for all of human kind? Or is this just some motivating psycho-babble?
None of that, I assure you. Hold on.