{"id":343,"date":"2015-09-21T14:43:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T19:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/?p=343"},"modified":"2015-09-21T14:43:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T19:43:07","slug":"the-nature-of-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/general\/the-nature-of-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity is of a universal nature.<\/p>\n<p>Do Eskimos differ from Aboriginals? Are Aboriginals different to Africans? Do Africans differ from Asians? Are Asians different to Arabs? And possibly most telling, are Europeans different to them all?<\/p>\n<p>Assuming all you&#8217;re considering is their skin, perhaps they are. Yet how shallow a perception is that?\u00a0 Does the color of our skin, which seldom exceeds a millimeter, reveal the nature of the human being housed within?\u00a0 Is character clearly displayed in bold letters etched upon the surface of one&#8217;s flesh?<\/p>\n<p>Not really.\u00a0 Indeed not at all.<\/p>\n<p>However that is precisely what we do.\u00a0 We restrict our consideration of our fellow humans to how they differ from us, instead of how similar we are.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">To gaze upon closed flesh,<br \/>or to dive into an opened soul,<br \/>those who on the surface swim,<br \/>never delve the depths, within.<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/amwriting?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#amwriting<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; C.G.Ayling (@CGAyling) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CGAyling\/status\/491926325091782656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 23, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h6>To gaze upon closed flesh, or to dive into an opened soul, those who on the surface swim, never delve the depths, within.<\/h6>\n<p>Humanity is motivated by fundamental needs, and those needs are universal across all cultures, regardless of their diversity or distance from one another.<\/p>\n<p>Needs can be separated into physical and spiritual.\u00a0 {Isn&#8217;t it strange how our genetic encoding seems to encourage us to divide rather than to bring together?}\u00a0 Physical needs are tangible.\u00a0 They include food, drink, shelter, and survival.\u00a0 Spiritual needs are intangible.\u00a0 They are far more complex, however they are as universal in nature as our physical needs.\u00a0 Our most essential universal spiritual needs include acceptance, dignity, security, hope, understanding, compassion, and love.<\/p>\n<p>Are our physical needs more important than our spiritual ones?\u00a0 It would seem that until we fulfill the physical requirements of our bodies we cannot even consider our spiritual needs. Yet it strikes me this isn&#8217;t the case at all. Why?\u00a0 Because a life that lacks these spiritual elements is simply not a life worth living.<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without acceptance? How would you feel if no one accepted you as you truly are?\u00a0 How would you feel if you were forced to live a lie?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without dignity?\u00a0 How would you feel to be treated as somehow less than human?\u00a0 How would you feel to be beneath consideration?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without security?\u00a0 How would you feel if every element of your physical and emotional well-being was outside of your control?\u00a0 How would you feel if your very existence was at the capricious whim of persons unknown?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without hope?\u00a0 How would you feel if you had nothing to hope for? How would you feel if you knew everything you did was in vain?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without understanding?\u00a0 How would you feel if you didn&#8217;t know who you were, or who pulled your puppet strings?\u00a0 How would you feel if you didn&#8217;t know your purpose, or the point of life itself?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without compassion? How would you feel to be treated callously?\u00a0 How would you feel to be treated cruelly?\u00a0 How would you feel if you realized you simply didn&#8217;t matter?<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine living without love?\u00a0 Imagining this may be so difficult as to be virtually inconceivable.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, love is the glue that binds our spiritual needs into our emotional whole.\u00a0 Knowing we are loved grants us acceptance, dignity, security, hope, compassion, and understanding.\u00a0 And giving others our love ensures their crucial yet intangible spiritual needs are also fulfilled.\u00a0 Love is a circle, that which you give you somehow get back.<\/p>\n<p>Humans are social beings. We don&#8217;t need to be told life is better if our fundamental spiritual needs are fulfilled. And yet our nature seems to dictate that we deny others these very things. We want, expect, and even demand them for ourselves, but we&#8217;re not willing to freely give them to others.\u00a0 How strange is that behavior?\u00a0 To treat others with acceptance, dignity, security, hope, understanding, compassion, and love costs us nothing, yet we still seem unwilling to do so?\u00a0 How bizarre is it that?<\/p>\n<p>The things we can buy contribute nothing to meet our spiritual needs, yet we hold them as inordinately precious.\u00a0 If we have nobody with whom to share our possessions then everything we possess is worth precisely as much as it contributes toward our spiritual well-being, namely nothing.<\/p>\n<p>How did it come about that we value tangible objects more than we value the intangible elements which make life worthwhile?\u00a0 When did we become so confused as to value things more than we value the intangible elements which are in fact priceless?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Priceless&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Priceless does not mean &#8220;<strong><em>of enormous monetary value<\/em><\/strong>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>Priceless means &#8220;<strong><em>of such enormous value no monetary amount is adequate compensation for its loss<\/em><\/strong>&#8220;.\u00a0 Priceless describes the things we hold in our hearts, not the objects we hold in our hands.<\/p>\n<p>Our spiritual well-being is priceless.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever we are, we are spiritual beings. Wherever we are, we are the same.\u00a0 Let us strive to value and treat all humanity equally, for all humans truly do share fundamental needs and those needs are more of the spirit than they are of the flesh.<\/p>\n<p>{<strong>P.S.<\/strong> If you&#8217;d like to learn when I believe we started to become confused over the value of objects versus the value of feelings, you might start <a href=\"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/2015\/08\/on-money\/\">here<\/a>.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity is of a universal nature. Do Eskimos differ from Aboriginals? Are Aboriginals different to Africans? Do Africans differ from Asians? Are Asians different to Arabs? And possibly most telling, are Europeans different to them all? Assuming all you&#8217;re considering is their skin, perhaps they are. Yet how shallow a perception is that?\u00a0 Does the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[200,330,399],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-human-nature","tag-priceless","tag-spiritual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}