Tara knew that because the watery, blurred, shimmer of golden light was fading away, her chance to reach out and bring in that critical air for her starving cells was fading swiftly away. She had heard of the paralyzing effects of swimmers cramp, but now with the life giving surface at least twelve feet above her hopelessly outstretched hand and the last dregs of oxygen scoured from her body, only one detail dominated her very being. She wanted to breathe!

Tara knew that nearest oxygen might as well be as far away as the moon because she lacked the strength to even move an inch upward, let alone the twelve feet or so that was necessary; but her chest burned and her muscles seemed to cry out in anguish for her to breathe in something, anything, and do it right now!

Without her consent, with no choice in the matter as if some alien force was in control, Taras mouth sprang wide and her throat opened like a sluicing pipeline to gulp in an ice cold and poisonous lungful of thick, black water. Her mind screamed to the heavens with stomach wrenching agony and regret, because that involuntary breath of water meant death would instantly follow. With soul wrenching anguish she tightly closed her eyes in defeat and mercifully, her mind shut down and knew no more.

Tara was lucky. Two men in a canoe not very far away saw her struggle and sink below the lakes surface. They hurried over, dragged her unconscious body to the surface and as one worked awkwardly to get the water from her lungs and get her breathing once again, the other drove the small vessel quickly for the shore where further aid could be obtained.

The frantic race to save her could have gone either way, but Tara fortunately lived to tell the story in her own words hundreds of times. The experience was unique and worth telling, as well as hearing. But to her, the strangest aspect of the whole incident was the fact that though she knew there was no oxygen anywhere near, her body insisted on making her breathe in, no matter how much her cognitive functions said “No don’t do it.”

Taras experience is a small example of the sheer irresistible power the instinct driven ‘Old Brain’ has over the functions of our bodies. Her Neo-Cortex with all of its generated functions of logic, knowledge, and intelligence were shoved aside without regard. All that was important was survival. Her autonomic responses did not think, they did not care, they just overrode everything to try to hang on to life in a way programmed by millions of years of instinctual response.

We only think we want to do the things we do.

The best way to get a child to do what you ask them to do, is to be convince them that the task is what they really wanted to do anyway. Convince them it is “cool” to do it. Be delicately tricky and persuade them to think that particular desirable action was their original idea in the first place. Make them think that what you want them to do, is the latest popular trend for every kid in France!

This, astoundingly, is much like how the Old Brain works. It makes us think that steps it wants us to take, are OUR idea. Sex is the perfect example. People ‘think’ that they want to have sex -and during the morning after- so many (especially women) wonder why they did what they did. The Old Brain makes sex feel ohhhhh sooooo good, so we will do it more and do it again and again. The wonderful sensations of sexual pleasure are simply the Old Brains reward to us for completing an act that insures survival of the species.

It is amazing how many people will recoil and get angry at this postulation. “I have sex because I want to, not because instinct tells me to,” is the most common indignant response. And such responses only serve to illustrate how well refined are the tricks the Old Brain uses to get us to commit to what ever species imperative the instinctual side of our mind has determined to be currently most essential.

We are slaves to our instincts, and we are willing and enthusiastic slaves because of the physical and mental rewards given to us by the Old Brain and its glandular processes. Also, not only do our rewards come as feelings that induce great pleasure and satisfaction, but the rewards also include (as in the case of sex once again) injected drugs that calm and sooth us and literally get us high when we do what certain impulses of survival and propagation, drive us to do. A list of these opioid chemicals released in the human brain includes:

corticotropin (adrenocorticotropic hormone, ACTH)
Beta-lipotropin
dynorphin
endorphin
enkephaline
leumorphin

These are powerful chemical substances that assist the brain with feeling justified, satisfied, calmed, and rewarded. When injected with incorrect dosages, however; these compounds can make any individual act as if they were devoid of all civilized predisposition.

More examples of how our actions are so often just mindlessly controlled processes instilled long ago as primal functions, are so numerous that they can fill an encyclopedia volume. There is not room enough here for all of the evidence to be documented. But what has been presented so far should be enough make anyone begin to question all human motivations, even just a little.

Do we choose to do anything at all in our daily lives because it simply just a rational, unregulated, unfettered free will decision? Or are we just primitive automatons, only mimicking logical decision making beings?

To make any advances whatsoever in society and civilization we must have an answer to this last question. And not only do we have to know to what extent the Old Brain controls us, we have to develop our cognizance to a level that it is more commanding than basics instincts are. We must learn a supreme control over basic instincts to fight, to kill, to steal, to overpopulate, to consume as if there is no tomorrow. Rational thinking beings tend to shy away from such propensities. In fact, thinking beings usually tend to make a code of ethics that prohibit such barbaric practices.

There is a time to defend oneself and fight for what is right.

But can we trust that when we make a decision to fight and defend, that it is our Neo-Cortex that made the decision and not some primitive instinct that does not care and cannot understand the consequences of every violent action?

There is a time and place for families to have children. But can we be certain that the time and place for having children is ever truly thought out and acted upon correctly?

………..In sub-Saharan Africa, up to 46% of pregnant women are infected with HIV, and approximately 35% of their children will be born infected because of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.AIDS is responsible for an increasing share of under-five mortality. In Africa, its share rose from 2% in 1990 to 6.5% in 2003……………….

Why are mothers with AIDS even having babies? Is this what a compassionate, thinking, logical human would even consider ever doing? Or do these mothers still have children even when they have AIDS simply because instinct which has no thought for consequences drives them to have babies; to procreate at all cost to the worlds sanity.

…………… In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty". Every year 15 million children die of hunger. Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children died from illness and starvation. ………………

Why are people who live in “absolute poverty” having children? If people who lived in poverty did not have so many children, they would not live in quite such a degree of poverty, and more importantly 100 MILLION CHILDREN WOULD NOT DIE OF STAVATION in a single decade. If people who live in poverty and cannot afford to feed a child were to stop having them, millions would not die! Do starving people have children because they are thinking logically about their situation? Or do they have children because instinct drives them to procreate no matter how illogical an idea it is?

Most people will state at this point that ‘all human have a basic right to have children.’ I heartily agree. But just because we have the right and the means to give birth where and when we want, should we do it indiscriminately and without any semblance of intelligent thought in the matter? Procreation is just one small example among many that could have been used to reveal how humans are not as advanced mentally as we would like to think. But there is great hope that we can do better.

After millions of years of mechanical and perfunctory living, a miracle has happened. Humans are beginning to be able to think.

This ability is growing daily. As stated in previous writings, the power of the mind is greater than the power of basic instinct. This is true because the power of the mind can be used to analyze and understand every drive that governs our actions. With greater understanding of our primitive needs and desires, we can gain the ability to actually make decisions in our lives. We could become a real thinking species!

What do we need to proceed further along in this matter?

We need to divert some of our vast resources away from valueless arenas and begin funneling both resources and people (mostly people) to the study of humans and what makes them ‘tick’. We need to have vast groups of dedicated thinkers uncovering the difference of what we think is true and what is actually the reality we live in and live by. And these people have to not work for the marketplace profit, but they must work for humanity instead.

We need education. If there is any institution that promotes actual learning, if there is any instance where time or even money can be donated to help someone in the world learn, we have to support them and freely give of our time and resources.

But most of all we have to each do this as individuals. All of these efforts cannot wait for impotent governments and institutions to take the initiative. They are all at this time impossibly bogged down by the instinctual drive to live by ‘The Law of Expanding Returns.’

Only individual effort can change the world. Only individual effort can -person by person- turn the tide of misunderstanding in the human condition, and in so doing turn away the tide of anguish and suffering that misunderstanding of our true motives for living and working, can cause at this stage of our existence.

Whose education will you try to enhance today?

Next posting:

The immutable, all encompassing Law of Expanding Returns. No human decision is made without it. We cannot avoid it, we cannot escape it. Understanding how it works and bending this principle to our will can change every minute of our lives; making us happier, more productive in any endeavor, enlightened, and finally civilized at last!

Continue on to part 6 in the 'Ethical Revolution' series              http://hubpages.com/hub/The-First-Law-of-Civilization