Contribute to the Species?

From a discussion about the drive and direction of each person to contribute to the human race as a whole. Examples mentioned included art, science and similar positive possibilities. As usual, I had to go off on a tangent...:).

I don't tend to think in species-wide terms, but perhaps I feel a similar urge. To me, the way to build a healthy structure is to ensure each brick is of high quality and placed with care. Thus, it makes sense (to me) to focus on the individual.

We can't teach everything in schools. Perhaps we should teach emotional health and judgment more proactively, the skills necessary to allow healthy interpersonal interaction. But we focus instead on cultural values and on trying to achieve immortality through our progeny: learn my beliefs, my values, child! Fear-based curriculums. Perhaps we should just teach young people to think, evaluate, self-explore. Or perhaps the hidden agenda is just to train future serfs and I'm being silly thinking the goal is to produce mature thinking citizens. Pet peeve...:).

Religions, governments, wars, crimes - all are composed of or enacted by individuals. In our culture, we accept that the focus that produces results is material in nature: social achievement, earning power, physical beauty, attaining occupational goals. I postulate that the fundamental priority of the species should be personal psychological health development, be it termed religious, spiritual or emotional/cognitive. People should be taught to understand themselves first, then to focus on social and material achievement.

Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but it seems to me that a roomful of people who don't feel threatened by each other might just find something productive to do with their time...:).

It seems obvious to me that the collective health is rooted in that of the individual member. The goals of health appear obvious to me as well: increased happiness and well-being, decreased suffering and illness. There are recipes for success recorded throughout history and never has information been more readily available to the average person than today. Will we use this power?

D