Exceeding Our Programming

Mother nature provides us all with what we need to survive, so how or why should we exceed that exquisite programming?

Yesterday we took our dogs to the groomers. As soon as we got home, one of them went out to our backyard and proceeded to roll all over the ground, and in some poop, as well. She might have had an itchy back, but I suspect her behaviour was related to something a lot more primitive. Nature's way of protecting dogs, and us, too, is to help us to fit in with our surroundings. By rolling in that poo and the grass, she was disguising those odours that stopped her from fitting in. 

Humans have survived with similar instincts. We fit in. Standing out from the crowd makes you vulnerable. Yet, we are humans, not dogs or cattle. Because we can think, we can exceed our basic programming and rise above primitive fears. Or can we?

For hundreds of years appealing to that instinct to fit in has played into the desires of those who would control us. They point at someone who would defy them and declare that those people are evil and must be purged. Kings and Popes have used this technique to declare wars, pogroms, inquisitions, and systematic genocides. Millions have died because good humans who just wanted to protect themselves and their families were convinced that those different people were a dire threat. No monarch, president, chancellor, or church leader could have killed so many on their own. They used their voices and lies to do that for them. 

Not so terribly long ago the boogeyman of polite society was the homosexual. A huge part of humanity lived in fear of discovery. They died rather than be castrated by the state. These were good people who would never have harmed anyone else. Quite the opposite, they desired only to be allowed to do what they would want for others; live as they were made and as they desired and leave others to do the same. 

Today, for the most part, we live in societies where being 'gay' is acceptable. The boogeyman now is the transgender threat. 

Oh, I know, I'm preaching to the choir here. Nobody who reads this will hate me because I defied the judgement made when I was born. Everyone looked at my body and declared that I should live as a man until death. Changing that was an action I never should have had to do. But nobody should have to live hating themselves for what goes on inside their head, unless that thing harms the rest of the world. So there is the crux of the matter. Someone who wants to control others will do what they can to convince your sisters and brothers that doing what is right for you is evil. Think about that. It is what they truly believe. If they believe it for me then they believe it for you as well. Anyone who choses to do what is right for themselves is the enemy of those who wish to control everyone else. 

Fear that leader who points at someone different and says, "Hate them!"

Rise above your programming, encourage others to do the same, and love one another. 

Pity those who act mindlessly because they are unwilling to think. 

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; 

it is easy in solitude to live after our own; 

but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd

keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson