Throughout the ages, man has looked up to the stars and asked ‘What am I? Why am I here?’. It has mattered not if he has looked up from the mouth of cave warmed by a bonfire or from the balcony of an apartment; it is a question inherent to mankind.
Many would romanticize mankind; giving our species a noble character; a destiny; a great plan to our existence. In this, they would be wrong.
Man serves no greater purpose. Removed from the ecological process of the world, mankind no longer even contributes as his fellow animals do. Humans are born to die; to run a frenzied race for abstractions through life, only to meet oblivion at the end of their short tenure. Mankind is inconsequential; a meaningless race spinning through the void on an insignificant mote of dust. In the blink of an eye, we could be gone; and not a thing would be disturbed. We would be merely another extinct species; a failed evolution, not a key piece of some master plan.
As for this supposed ‘noble character’ of the human race, no such thing exists. Mankind’s most basic nature is that it is inherently selfish; one need only look to our civilizations, both those past and present, to see the truth in this. Some would say that the human race is ascending, learning from this to become selfless and pure. They would be in error. Mankind is indeed learning and changing, but not into a selfless paragon of ‘good’. No, rather mankind is slowly learning a more practical selfishness.
All creatures exist, at the heart of the matter, to be successful. For animals, that means mere survival and propagation of their species. But, what of the human animal? What necessity is that if mankind has removed itself from the ravages of the natural cycle? No longer is a focus on mere survival and maintenance of the population required, so what then do we strive for?
In place of these more primal goals, new successes have been created by culture; those of success, wealth, fame. No longer does mankind need to strive for simple survival, freed from that to pursue more abstract goals. So liberated, the selfishness that would have once been directed at survival is instead directed to these abstractions.
It is the pursuit of the abstractions in which man is slowly learning a more practical selfishness, for indeed we must. For too long mankind has seen its success as a goal to be fulfilled as quickly as possible with no regard for possible consequences or damages done, and this has and will be our greatest weakness. If mankind is to achieve the most basic goal; that of survival of the species, then we can no longer bite the hand that feeds; taking what we want with no regard for the future.
The noble character of man is a myth; a myth created by the selfish who see the power that such ideas of goodness gives them. It is an illusion created for those cannot come to terms with the basic, primal nature of their race.
The purpose; the destiny of the human race? This too is an illusion; one created and maintained by the masses who are terrified of facing the finality of oblivion; the pointless briefness of their existence.
Such is the nature of man; selfish and vain. Ours is not a noble kind of animal; rather it is an animal removed from nature and still not completely adapted to its new lifestyle. One can only hope that our belief in destiny and purpose will be cast off in acceptance of oblivion; and our inherent selfishness evolves into a practical selfishness.