More (but separate) thoughts on nature vs. nurture

The last post has been sitting under the "edit drafts" folder thing for a while. This shall be a continuation from some thoughts while driving back from SF.

I hope you've had a role model sometime in your life. Someone who gave you inspiration, challenged you to exceed even your own expectations, or introduced you to a part of yourself that you haven't even discovered yourself. Mine was a friend I had in high school, and although it has sadly come to the premature tapering of familiarity, my impression of him has made a lasting impact on who I try to be. That's one of the worst things in life, I think- when you have friends so close to you early in your life, but inevitably time is the most persistent and most ruthless opponent of all. Our lives are too busy, too short, to keep hold of everything we want.

He was the one who showed me that you didn't have to be super popular to be liked by everyone, didn't have to be super anal crazy to be good at anything you attempted, and that being genuinely nice to people makes everyone happy. He is probably the biggest influence on how I treat other people an my moral standards.

How do I know though that this part of me was influenced by nurture and not nature? How many people do you meet within the first 10, 15, 20 years of your life who try and give you advice, and how many of those people do you actually listen to? Do we have to have the natural predisposition to be more inclined to listen to a particular person in the first place? Or was this mindset and appealing path already bestowed upon me by my parents?

Maybe I'm living up to a superficial straight-edge, high school view, time-blurred reality of what life really showed me, but I feel that leading by example is what made me me. Like me or not, I'm happy with how I turned out.

Are we Human or are we [lyric discrepency here]

I'm trying to figure people out. You know the question of nature vs. nurture, asking if a person is who they are because of the way they were raised or if they just are predispositioned for "evil." I'm sure you were posed this question in some English or philosophy class or something. This has been buzzing in the back of my mind, and though I can't give an honest straightforward answer, I prefer to think through things my way, with science and logic. Although that is not to say that I don't have hopes for higher powers and unexplainable spectacles

Why should I be nice to someone even though I know they aren't going to reciprocate an effort of kindness? Why do I continue to do favors for someone when I know will not properly acknowledge it or return with one in kind? Why do I invest so much more effort in some things when other people try to brush off their minimal work as par level investment?

As much as I would like to be the optimist and expect the best out of everyone, it is evolutionarily more logical to expect the worst and be prepared. Sure it may be extra work, additional stress, and sometimes completely unnecessary, but I won't lie that I often put up a facade of indifferentness so I won't get hurt. I know that everyone wants to be able to trust each other and feel that in the end the world is a good place, but it is the few bad eggs that always seem to have a disproportional weight when we make decisions or assumptions. That is probably why I have some trust issues (aside from my absolutely abysmal ability at reading people).

I expect the worst because then it is easier to get over the disappointment, to convince myself that a minimal investment is a minimal loss, and that I didn't really care for whatever it was very much in a first place which, of course, is probably a lie.

I believe that people are evil, but humans are the true light for our future. People can be greedy, selfish, animalistic. But it is when a human being puts aside their prejudices and does something good just for the heck of it that I remember to not slacken my grip on hope, because it is what they would want from someone else to do to them; it is an incredible act of human altruism. To me, 'people' is just an assemblage of persons, the highest level of animals in their own right, and driven by the laws of survival and individual desires while confined to the social barriers such as rules which we create in an attempt to give ourselves a sense of equality and security from the sometimes selfish actions of our fellow Homo sapiens. But we can be much, much more than simply a Homo sapien, we can be human beings. Individuals with immense cognitive ability but also the miracle of being able to put the greater good before ones self. Truly being able to utilize foresight and empathy in a way that is truly altruistic, transcending the symbiotic concepts of mutualism. (haha biology reference!) People are assholes. We see this all the time with the psychology concepts of social loafing and the bystander effect (if you haven't taken a psychology class, look into it- they are quite interesting.) Humans, well, we are dense, but there is hope.

So maybe after all people aren't born "good" or "evil." Perhaps we are just born "selfish," and need the veil lifted from our eyes to see a world of benevolence.

I wrote this a while ago following the tsunami in Japan: In the face of disaster and dissatisfaction, when all else seems to be lost, that is when the few finally shine. The few who do good for the world without asking for reward or attention, who work behind the scenes to care for others, and are the shining light of inspiration in a time of clouds and darkness. Inspiration for the rest of us who are too busy with our lives and have forgotten what it is like to be Human

Everyone can make the little things count, to perform a few good deeds that perhaps sets off a chain reaction of inspiration. I love the message of this commercial (look beneath the words of Liberty Mutual) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMwoexR1evo

This whole post blossomed from this simple idea that has been lingering in the back of my mind for a while now: people are dicks, but humans can truly be something much greater