Why is man a social animal
Monday, December 10, 2007
I was in class second or third when I would have read this eternal line of insignificant significance at that time, "Man is a social animal". Since then we have read it on the walls of our schools, from our parents, in our sibling's books, on our bookmarks and god knows where all. But all that matters is that it got etched in our minds inseparable like our skin.It has been almost twenty years since then and I still am astounded at how deep is the meaning of this line. I don't question the statement but I question the very much need for the same. Why is man a social animal, why is it that we feel the primal need to socialize as we feel the need to feed. If it has brought happiness to mankind it surely has brought the curse of pain even more on us. Look at our relations, show me one relation which has not inflicted the pain on an individual. Irony is that generally its not that a person is wrong or has sinned that the pain comes, its just a conflict of two individuals trying to express their own set of beliefs and mind set. So that is the reason we see so many fights where both the sides are right in their own but still wrong or catastrophic or incorrigible in other sense.
Let's take two scenarios, first one (the only one that I will discuss) where the person is having a stereotype in mind and hence that creates a prior barrier in communication, like Americans are money minded, Asians are secretive, North Indians are aggressive, Keralites are lecherous etc etc. These stereotypes pre-program the stimulus of an individual, unlike a fair ground where you try to understand a personality; but at the same time they are helpful many times in times of dangerous situations. But once we come to know each other then the stereotypes should pave the way for newly learned personality else it comes out as taunts and abusing.
Coming back to our social selves, what comes out as the most complex part is that investment that an individual does in these social contacts. When you fall in love, you get a whole new social baggage from other side. Irony is that love is guided more by need to be loved, cared and security than a rational choice. So many may say that best part about friends is that you get to choose them yourselves, I don't agree. Love just happens.
Most of relations will survive if distance is there, the yet another peculiar characteristic of us humans. The closer we get, the more negatives we find; the farther we go the more we remember of the good times. I guess the distance aggravates the emotional needs of above said love, care, affection and security; and the closeness brings in the personality specifics, the stereotypes. So I have come to a conclusion after trial and errors that one needs a personal space in every relation, be it your spouse, parents, siblings, friends or relatives. Inability to quantify these limits will always play a devil's advocate here.
To wrap up these erratic musings, I present one more alibi for my question - Why is man a social animal - the pain. That is the biggest side effect of socializing. Irony is that the pain inflicted by these separations is not just limited to emotional but it oozes out to become physical. It's surprising to see in your early twenties that how these relations can make you a power house or a rotten silhouette of your normal past. The solitude, the fear and the glumness that creeps in is analogous to a death of near one, good enough to turn you to being a handicapped. Still as they say, the life goes on. So one should pick up one's emotional luggage and move on, keep walking. The billion dollar question then is, if one can?!And we come back to the square one, why is human a social animal? Wouldn't it have been lot more better had we been just animals?
Labels: Experiences
posted by Jas @ 10:55 PM,
1 Comments:
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At December 26, 2007 10:01 PM,
Pilot-Pooja said...
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Nice post..
I second the quote.." the closer we get, more negatives we find.."
But yes..we are much more than an animal or to be precise-- a social animal!!
We have a MIND with which we can explore, analyse, move forward..
