Part 1
What exactly is the human condition, what caused it, and how the human race has finally liberated itself from the horror of it
Part 1.1 Our great fear of the subject of the human condition has led to evasive interpretations of what it is
What this Part 1 presents is a full explanation of what exactly the ‘human condition’ is, why we humans have been living in mortal fear of it, and of the scientific advances that have finally enabled us to free ourselves from the agony and horror of the human condition.
Firstly, to look at different interpretations of the human condition.
As will be revealed, the human condition has been an unbearably depressing subject for us humans to face while we couldn’t truthfully explain it. In fact, the human condition has been such a deep, serious, and guilt-ridden issue that we have been scared to think about it; I have even heard ‘the human condition’ referred to as ‘the personal unspeakable’ and as ‘the black box inside of us humans that we can’t go near’. So the human condition is a very deep, serious and foreboding subject. However, as we will see, through finally having what the human condition really is properly and compassionately explained and understood, it is, thank goodness, no longer a terrifying, ‘can’t go near it’ subject—and, best of all, the problem it refers to is totally solved by that explanation, which means the human race can become completely peaceful, loving, calm and happy! If you don’t believe me, please read on!
The following interpretations of the human condition vary in their degree of evasion of the once—but no longer—unbearably depressing and confronting subject of the human condition.
The most evasive interpretation of the ‘human condition’ is to say it is about the physical and practical hardships and struggles to survive in human life, like having to find a suitable place and dwelling to live in, or having at times to endure natural disasters like floods and droughts, or having to cope with famine or poverty or remoteness or isolation. However, such physical and practical hardships of human existence are not at all what the human condition really is. The human condition is not a physical struggle but a mental struggle. It refers to a question we wrestle with in our mind.
Less evasive interpretations of the human condition do recognise that it has something to do with a mental struggle, but these guilt-free accounts still find a way to avoid going anywhere near what that struggle really is. Such interpretations include saying that the human condition is the despair that comes with being conscious because it makes us realise we will die someday; or that the human condition is simply the terror we conscious humans experience from having the free will to choose what to do without knowing the outcome.
A much more accurate—but in fact, as we will see, still extremely inadequate—interpretation of what the term ‘human condition’ means is that it refers to the anguish caused by our inability to answer the question of why, if the universally accepted ideals of life are to be cooperative, selfless and loving—ideals that have been accepted by modern civilisations as the foundations for constitutions and laws and by the founders of all the great religions as the basis of their teachings—have we humans been competitively, selfishly and aggressively behaved?
However, this interpretation also doesn’t, in truth, go anywhere near what we humans are talking about when, in moments of profound and very serious thought, we dared to refer to the ‘human condition’. After all, we have what we consider an obvious explanation for our competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour—that it is due to us having must-reproduce-our-genes, ‘survival of the fittest’, savage instincts like other animals. We think, ‘Other animals are always fighting and aggressively competing with each other to make sure they pass their genes on—as the process of natural selection dictates they must try to do—and of course that is our biological heritage as well. We have competitive, selfish and aggressive instincts in us that emanate from our animal past that we are always having to try to contain and restrain. That’s the basic responsibility and task of being a rational, sensible, conscious thinking human—to make sure our competitive, selfish and aggressive animal instincts don’t get out of control!’ So having that seemingly obvious excuse for our competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour indicates that when in moments of profound thought we dared to refer to the ‘human condition’ we must have been referring to something far deeper and much more serious, which, as we will see, it certainly is.
