Andrew Horder

I think that depends on what we think a human is. The biological definition is easy: Homo Sapiens, ‘Wise Man’, the ape with the biggest brain. Two arms, two legs, a head, and the bit in the middle that contains all the viscera and other gooey stuff. the bank balance to heat our nice homes, or the ability to employ large men with guns to protect our families and all our stuff.

All of that has physical requirements – the right temperature, enough food to fuel it, and protection from smaller-brained beasts with larger teeth and sharper claws. Those physical needs drive a lot of our human behaviour, making sure we always have our physical needs met and therefore survive.

We generally convince ourselves that we also have needs beyond those physical needs. We call them things like “belonging”, and “society”, and “law and order”. But if you trace those back, they all come back to feeling confident that we will have our physical needs met and that nobody’s going to come and take it all away from us. So our pursuit of those types of things are still really driven by physical needs.

Read the full article in The Quest Issue 13 - Being Human

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Email: andrew@joyful-genius.com Telephone: 07885 963156 Website: Joyful-Genius.com