What are the basic and most primal aspects of human nature?

Are we as humans driven by some primal needs and urges that inherently influences each decision of ours?

                                                                                                                               – Nitin Chaudhary 

If we go deep into the science of Darwinism as well as the exploratory musings of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, we see that we are all quite different from what we project ourselves to be in the real world. But, once we start to delve inside, we understand that the inherent core of our behavior and patterns are based on some really primal and basic urges. What if I told you, that all the clothes you wear, the personality that you consider as your own, the way you speak, the way you look at others, your perceptions and your judgments; all these are derived from some very primitive intentions. The subtle nuances of our behavior is not very different from that which we had during the times when man roamed around naked amongst hordes of beasts in the wilderness.

The immense conditioning that we go through, including the myriad layers of personality and conscious thought that we put into our everyday lives are just illusory shields which help us stay “human” and not act out our innermost primal desires and urge. On the other hand, these primal needs and urges cannot be masked completely and hence, need to be channelized into more productive and civilized forms. This is where aspects such as sports, art and work come in. The basic primal needs that are apparent in humans include the need to survive, which is inherently related to the need to sustain oneself from injury, harm, hunger, and other types of dangers. This primal need for survival is projected as the inherent need for competition that is observed during sports and corporate houses, which are more healthier projections that those we see amongst animals. Another primal urge that we just cannot ignore is the need to procreate and the need to be socially accepted, which inherently stems from aspects such as our sexuality and security.

In society today, these emotions and inner urges are repressed to quite an extent, owing to which they are even considered as taboo in many cultures. But, the aspect to be understood here is that these needs and urges are the essence of what actually makes us “human”, instead of the piles and piles of etiquette and social and cultural norms that we follow to fit into society. It is time to break free and embrace our inner urges, so that we can find productive (and fun) ways to release and channelize them

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Further Tripping… 

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