Evolution's Greatest Gift

Evolution has condemned our species to a life of togetherness. Our brain's capacity for social pain, our ability for our hearts to be broken is evolution's greatest gift to human kind.

_{Image by geralt - source: Pixabay}

The loss of a loved one may be the most intense pain any of us will ever experience. While physical wounds typically heal over time, we still burst out in tears, years after that loss of a loved one, on quit moments when we think about the love lost; some of the social pains never truly go away. This pain we feel when we're permanently, or even temporarily separated from a loved one is the reason why Maslow's pyramid of needs is only right when talking about individuals. Maslow said that only when our need for food, water and shelter are fulfilled, the need for social relationships even becomes relevant. These two should be switched around when talking about our species and mammals in general..

All mammals, need social connections first and foremost; it's the only reason mammals even survive the first months or years, because we're all born helpless. We only survived because there was someone there that had such a strong connection with us that every time they were separated from us or heard us cry, they would rush over to find us and take care of us. As infants crying was our only mode of communication, so we cried when we were hungry, thirsty of cold and every time we did that loving someone rushed over to give us what we need.

We also cried when we got separated from our caretakers and parents. Social separation causes real pain; the same regions of the brain that light up when we feel physical pain also light up when we feel social pain. I've posted before about the strong suspicion among evolutionary biologists that we only survived and climbed to the top of the food chain in the dawning days of homo erectus because of our strong social skills, our ability to cooperate and organize; sabre-tooth tigers and mammoths were no match against us once we organized and started hunting them down in packs.

This urge of ours to connect, and the pain we feel when those connections are broken, is evolution's greatest gift to mankind. It's what moves us to live, play and work together. To organize in groups to get things done that none uf us could have achieved individually. Unfortunately we live in a world and in times that place the individual on a pedestal and looks down on social dependencies. We celebrate so called individual achievements and individual achievers. We're told that we must "take care of number one" first, and that no one will take care of us if we don't take care of ourself first. If you're so selfless that you give away so much of what you have to those less fortunate than you, and one day you get sick and don't have enough money for a doctor, than that's your fault; you should have been a little more selfish and a little less selfless. Funny, isn't it?

_{Image by geralt - source: Pixabay}

We need to connect, it's embedded in our evolutionary, biological and psychological make-up. A great idea by yourself is worth absolutely nothing; you need a group of people to like that idea and are willing to dedicate their time and energy to (the realization of) that idea. Like I'm sitting here, typing all by myself, so I need you, dear reader, for that time spent to be worth anything at all. When we have a great idea or work of art, we feel an urge to share it with the world. And here, again, our daily reality of capitalism and individualism says that we must sit on that idea, secure it with a patent, and never share.

The fact that we are made to underestimate the importance of our social connections, is in my mind one of the greatest problems of today. I have a good feeling though, about where we're headed as global citizens, when I'm looking at the rise of crypto, blockchains and decentralized applications on steem and EOS. When I read @meno's post about his experience on SteemFest, with the apt title Communities are crash proof, I get a warm feeling because there's such a sense of togetherness around this whole steemit movement; it's living proof of the existence of evolution's greatest gift to mankind.

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