My Thoughts and Ideas

I've been thinking a lot about my role on this planet and how I want to contribute and how my morals and values influence my thoughts on how to make my contribution.

I think too much.

When I was feeling quite depressed, I was trying to make some kind of fundamental mental health plan based on what I've learned about humans, their environment and their happiness with the aids of my interests in biology and psychology.

So it came to this:

The primitive human drive is to survive. During our daily lives, without even really knowing it, we have many ways of aiding our survival as individuals and as a species. When we succeed in doing whatever it is to survive, our brain thanks us by releasing happy chemicals.

Eating
Exercising
Intimacy, orgasming, oxytocin
Feeling as though you belong to a group
Contributing, gift giving, helping others
Having a sense of achievement.

(I also found a few months after thinking about this stuff, Maslow's pyramid of psychological needs which probably goes into greater details than I just did)

All of these are basic fundamental human drives which makes us happy. For example, when we eat, we get a rush of dopamine to the brain which is the brain's way of thanking you for your behaviour which has aided survival. While having an intimate relationship with someone, often during orgasming or even hugging, oxytocin (which is the chemical that I think makes the world go 'round) is released increasing a sense of trust and bonding, making the relationship stronger chemically. Having a sense of belonging is very important for your self esteem and ego, being proud of where you're from and this motivates people to contribute to it. Contribution obviously aids survival of both the individual and the species. Achieving something, like making a tool for your community's use or even just doing your own washing gives you a sense of achievement, releasing lots of chemicals into the brain (there's been lots of studies about what motivates humans and achievement is probably the biggest one)

I feel as though the human mind is wired around survival, and it makes sense to think as to why we get so much pleasure out of all of these basic drives.

So when I was feeling realllly low, I decided to take time off from everything and wire in these basic foundations into my life, and focus on them. The rewards were great, it really got me back fighting.

However, I noticed that in today's busy contemporary society, it's kinda hard to get a good balance of all of these things done for yourself, and then something clicked.

All of these drives are rather basic, rather primitive. But our contemporary world, through convenience, as eliminated most of these behaviours automatically, which makes them hard to be achieved in the same way they used to be in everyday life.

For example, a man with the hunter role would fill almost all of those drives mentioned above by just going for a successful hunt. He'd get the exercise, the food, the sense of achievement, giving and belonging. And probably because he's such a man and he just fed his community, he'd probably get laid that night too.

While our society still offers a way to get these drives, I feel like the drives have been replaced with currency. So working full time, so you can bring meal tickets to your family is almost so removed psychologically from the instant reward that hunting would provide that it may not provide all the psychological benefits.

I then started thinking about how many people don't want to work 9-5 jobs, they don't know how they want to contribute, they don't agree with the systems, the increase in mid life crisis' and suicide and feeling as though they have a low status, giving them low self esteem because they don't really know how to contribute. Our society has turned our primitive desires into an organized construction of how to life conveniently. Rather than hunting for our food, we can spent $2 and buy a hamburger, removing all feelings of achievement and contribution.

I also find it ironic, that living the way humans currently do, that we're ruining the planet. That money means more to most people than the state of our environment. We're too removed from nature, and as a result I believe we're suffering.

I'm not saying let's go back to basics and play hunters and gatherers for a while, but I think a lot of things need to change. Like all past civilizations which once stood so strong and powerful, ours will be sure to fall, too. I think it was Marx who talked about the improvement of a society though trial and error. I can’t really remember sociology last year :/

I don't believe in the American dream.

So, I guess my role is to make people question their environment and generic expected lifestyles, and I intend to do this through my artworks. I have lots and lots of ideas. I just need to do it.