Essays: Volume One. Mark McGinnis
obeyed the precepts of the religion they would be allowed to have life beyond death. If they did not follow the rules there would be no continuation of life or a very unpleasant one, or one in which they would have to make amends for their transgressions to reach the pleasant afterlife. The depth of fear of death that developed in many human beings proved to be an effective tool to shape social behavior.
Death is one of the most natural events to take place in a creature’s lifetime. It is certainly no less natural than birth, growth, reproduction, and decay. Death for many creatures in this world is not the end of a full cycle of life. Death often occurs to further the life cycle of other creatures. Human beings have, for the most part, overcome playing a part in this aspect of nature and expect to live a full cycle of life and do everything possible to extend that cycle as long as possible, making great strides in recent centuries. This effort is once again driven primarily by conscious or unconscious fear. There is a sense of immortality in genetic reality that if we pass on our genes, we are certainly living in future generations. I also believe we live on in future generations by what we do in our lifetime; by our interactions with others, by our interactions with our environment, by the thoughts we place into the world that are carried on by the others. This is also a kind of immorality.
At death we lose what we call life. The immensely complex systems of our body cease to function. The matter of our body begins to change its form – to break down and return to simpler structures some of which will eventually take on more complex forms. In this way the physical matter of us (and everything else) is most certainly “reborn” – nothing wasted, nothing lost. What worries many people is what happens to our consciousness, our spirit, our soul — this unique individual self that many human beings value beyond all else. The thought of this being extinguished with death is too much for some to bear; somehow it needs to survive, to survive in an afterlife or by returning to this life in a new form. This seems to be a final form of egotism – a belief that we are so valuable and unique that we cannot end as does everything else in this universe. The blame for this delusion lies within the level of consciousness that we have developed and as of yet most of us have been unable to transcend.
Consciousness
Mule Deer & Great Pine, acrylic on panel, 2007
The development of consciousness in human beings have left most with what seems to an incurable superiority complex in regard to the other creatures on this planet. Because we have the capacity to hold and develop thought in our minds, contemplate the past and future, and create tools which seem to be more sophisticated than those of other creatures, we happily put the other beings in an inferior to position to ourselves. This is one of the most glaring examples of the arrogance of our species.
What makes us believe that we understand the consciousness level of other creatures? The only way we can measure the level of other creatures is from our own level of consciousness. We can study them physically and determine nervous systems and brain capacities and development, but does that truly give us a sense of what their conscious capacity is? I think not. Not if we allow that consciousness may take many forms of which we have no way to perceive or understand with our capabilities. This seems true not only with mammals but with but with all beings and may even extend to non-living matter. How all matter interacts in our universe is symphony of mysteries of which we are just being to gain some understanding and that understanding can only be gained from the limited perception and consciousness that we possess as human beings.
I have rarely seen the word consciousness used where the word awareness would not substitute with no change in the meaning applied. The word awareness seems to be more generously applied to nearly all forms of life. Single-celled creatures are certainly aware on many levels, most especially of their environments and their survival. Their awareness rises to level of what we might call self-consciousness. In more complex organisms such as birds and mammals we are inclined to allow them a higher sense of awareness but not that of our own sophistication. Yet when the time is taken to study the true awareness or consciousness of a crow, a dog, an ape or any creature, the findings always seem to astound the public. I am dumbfounded that most people do not even believe that animals can experience emotions – it does not take a multi-million dollar study to perceive what is happening around you. I don’t think we can ever know the full extent of other species aptitude for awareness or consciousness as it seems more than likely that they have conscious capacities that differ from ours.
It used to be that people who attributed conscious qualities to plants were considered “whackos.” Now there is an increasing body of hard science that shows that plants are most certainly conscious both in their awareness of their environments and in some cases in their ability to communicate with surrounding plants. It is not consciousness in a “human” sense but it is undeniable consciousness and it is intelligent.
An area that again many people would claim human superiority is that of self-consciousness. As far as we can tell with our limited awareness, we do seem to be the life-form that is most focused on itself. I would question whether this is a quality of superiority. The outcome of this capability seems to be that we have set ourselves on a path to extinction while having increasing levels of mental illness. In most spiritual traditions accomplishment is measured by the degree of overcoming self-consciousness.
Sex
Pine & Mourning Doves, acrylic on canvas, 2009
Procreation is another of life’s imperative for obvious reasons. The various systems that have evolved to propagate life have been many and varied but sex has been the one most acclaimed and widespread. In most species which use a sexual process to reproduce the process is a primary and dominant part of the life cycle. This carries through to human beings. In nearly all contemporary human societies monogamy has been chosen as the preferred mating pattern for males and females. This seems a rather strange choice in that only about 3% of mammal species are monogamous. Nearly all other primates are not monogamous, instead preferring the dominate male with as group of females system. Human beings have the traits for such a arrangement – larger males, violent males, and innately competitive males. In monogamous relationships birds seem to lead the way with of 90% of the species forming pairs, but recent research shows that this monogamy is primarily social with only 10% showing sexual loyalty.
The question is why human beings have evolved this way. I am sure there are many reasons. A common reason is the long and difficult practice of human child rearing is more easily accomplished with two adults working at the task. Another is the suppression of women by locking them into a system of child production. Certainly monogamy was bonus in trying to lock in certainty of genetic heredity (it is estimated that about 94% of children have the fathers who are the true parentage – quite a successful system). Monogamy has had other genetic consequences as well. It has created a system where nearly all males have the opportunity to spread their genes. While this may have added more diversity to the human gene pool, it may have added some genetic properties that may damage the species as opposed to the harem system where the strongest or smartest spread their genes – this thinking has a terrible fascist ring to it.
As with birds, human social monogamy does not insure sexual monogamy. Between 25 and 50% of males admit to extra marital sexual activities and it is nearly the same number for women. Another criticism of the system renames our mating arrangement to “serial monogamy,” with the nearly half U. S. marriages ending in divorce. I cannot help but wonder if these high numbers are not somewhat stimulated by unrealistic sexual dissatisfaction with partners. As our consumer society has developed, a primary device to market a vast array of products, services, and entertainments has been sexuality. Marketers have found that this innate drive can very easily be triggered in human beings with outstanding results in monetary benefits. A problem arises when along with the desire to consume comes a disappointment in the person’s actual experience of sexuality, leaving them to desire “something else.” Sex is given meaning and importance in ways it cannot fulfill. Women may connect it their desirability,