If "Reading" people's motives were a norm, relationships likely wouldn't even exist
A Forethought
1If knowing other people’s motives were a common thing in the society right now, you would probably think “Isn’t it a good thing? Right? We can shun those who didn’t conform to the norms and societal rules, right?”
At first, I thought of the same thing but there is one key factor that I see where we always lack a foresight on; we are still animals on the fundamental level. In an ideal world, we would think we will be able to shun those who did not conform to our norms and such but putting it into practice though, it is more complicated than it looks.
Ideas like that should be taken with a grain of salt and foresight; taking in considerations of circumstances, the situation and, the end result.
There is this book called “The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life” that I have recently read about that talks about things of the mind that we fail to acknowledge the full picture of it, including motivations, idealism, attachment to religious beliefs and more. It is sort of a thesis which quite comprehensively explain and convince you in a way to think of the motives of human nature in a Darwinian Perspective, which is an odd perspective to think about as we generally think of the subject.
From my Passage “Reciprocity”, I already talked about how the instinct of returning back the favor was important in surviving during the ancient civilization about 10,000 years ago, knowing that our ancestors have cooperated with others because our ancestors adapted is just one evidence of why we categorize ourselves as part of animals, not only in nomenclature, but also in the perception as well.
It is important aswell to understand how this affects us now, as we have become more connected than ever, but counterintuitively the number of relationships keeps dropping. Source here
This is where maintaining relationships is paramount to who we are and what we are today. I asked a very close friend of mine about the concept and after some analysis and introspection of the insights he gave me, I have come to agree to what everything that he said due to how the world really just works currently.
Humans are not supreme beings that is out of the hierarchy of life, the idea of a human that knows everything and do everything on their own volition, is just plain BS. We need social interactions and relationships to have a happy, prosperous and productive life; where does the foundation of these relationships come? Trust.
Removing the Trust Factor of Relationships eliminates the reason why we have relationships (even in platonic, familial or romantic relationships) in the first place. We wouldn’t show our altruistic behaviors that built the foundation of civilization of the past; and we wouldn’t be standing where we are today if we assume we know anything and everything about the motives of an individual and act selfishly.
Where Altruism is present, Trust will be present as well. Altruism results from the Trust created which forms the bond between individuals.
The Quote from the known Stoic Philosopher Seneca perfectly describes this:
But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.
Now I have a Challenge for you, Reader.
Think about how you feel and perceive relationships before you have read this post, and have a self-introspection of things on how you perceive relationships now.
If it made sense, share this to your friends and potentially make someone’s life better. (It also helps to spread my viewership thanks to you :D)
That is all for now, I hope I have imparted some novel knowledge to you and see you on the next Insight!
Thumbnail Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash