So,yes,I have not been blogging for long long. I have received more questions yet again about, hear this,
What hormones make you angry?
Why do kids get all sad and angry and hit themselves?
Why do men leave women after they get them pregnant?
And my humble answer is,
I have actually written answers to these questions already.Only if all of you will have the patience to go read my archives.
Yes,I did promise I will write more about
Other causes of Anger ,especially the neurotransmitters associated with different varied emotions. Not just yet, My friends, Sometimes i go on for weeks without blogging.. so, bear with me. I can only blog when i feel like it. If I force myself, the blogs will look all forced. K?
So, coming back to the topic in question,About
Whether People will be less scared to die if they have no one they are emotionally attached to in this world?
To deal with this question we must first understand ,\\
Why are people scared to die in the first place?
The answer here could be pure Biology and life instincts, on one plane.The second would be a more complex reason of society and societal connections that we develop after we are born that make our lives nice to go about; and therefore , we end up enjoying the ride so much , we don't want to end this wonderful arrangement of things.
The third thing could be spiritual , where we feel certain responsibilties that would go imcomplete if you die abruptly.
Let us elaborate on this shall we?
Not wanting to die is a basic instinct of all living beings!!
When you watch
'animal planet' , you see that every animal that is being chased by another animal higher in the food chain, runs for it's life.It tries to save itself.We as humans are much similar to these animals. All of us, just thoughtlessly will run if we perceive danger to our lives.
Why don't we all stop and think, "What if I die.Why not just die?What is gonna happen if I die?Nothing Really!, so Why not die?" BUT NO !
If for one moment we just pause and think, "Why am i running? What is life? Isn't it just an endless cycle of eating,shitting, and then giving birth to the next generation?
Atleast as humans , we do a lil more than just that, we invent things, we go do jobs not directly concerned with just collecting food and thus kinda live our lives in a more elaborate fashion than say the deer which pretty much spend life loving its young(they sure do love their young,see they may not have a 9-5 job but they do love their young!) , mating, giving birth to its young and eating each day and spending a lot of its time in the day/night trying to find food. yes, yes, we also probably do work just so we can buy food, but then the work we do sometimes is not literally foraging for food.
Anyways, i just digressed into evolutionary theory there for a moment. Coming back, so yes, the deer per say will also run for its life just as much as a human does. And to think of it, the deer will try to save their young just we like do.. It is a BASIC INSTINCT. A big game plan by the DNA.
After all, what is life? what is death?
DNA, they have a big ploy here.
A certain set of DNA, they produce signals to produce another certain set of proteins to produce a certain organism and all the substances that the organism needs further during its lifetime, Isn't it? So ultimately, The DNA is doing this and also producing proteins that go act on the mind to produce other substances to invoke the organism to have this basic instinct to save its own life. What does the organism get at the end of its lifetime ,after it dies?Nothing.It won't know a thing after it dies.(Rebirth people, let's talk some other day)Why? Inshort, so that more and more of its kind can then be produced by this alive adult animal?
So, what is the purpose of including 'Production of progeny' as a Basic instinct, you might ask?
Well, that is the trick you see, DNA again, The whole ploy of giving the animal basic instinct to live for a certain number of years is to make sure that that particular DNA is forever safe in the cells of that animal till as long as it lives.
And this other basic instinct of finding sex pleasurable(humans say that other animals don't really have sex for pleasure, but dude, did you ask the animals?) or this desperate need to have sex as a compulsion, is another way to make sure that the DNA is then transfered to the next generation, which then continue to live even after the parent dies thus ensuring that young offsprings serve as this carrier of this DNA til they die too..
So yes, We are all the strategic carriers of the DNA that we carry.It rules us. It does all this, so that it and it alone can live endlessly...You see that? Ultimately what remains of each species is just the DNA.The animal dies but the DNA remains.
Nothing else can explain this thing as to why we all desperately want to live? what is it? Inexplicable in a lot of ways, if you peel off the initial layers.
Having said all this about BASIC INSTINCTS AND DNA DOMINATION AND WHAT NOT,
Next question to be addressed is
We as humans also want to live coz we are enjoying the ride in a way!
Ofcourse, this rule is applicable only if we are really enjoying the ride, which also explains why some humans might become dissatisfied with their present life circumstance and might attempt suicide. I don't see any other animal actually attempting suicide ever.
Yeah, prolly those animals in zoos who are caged up,they do sometimes attempt suicide because they are so miserable with their life in a confined space --which of course, the zoo keepers cleverly called FAILURE TO THRIVE. Yes, the pediatricians do also call that about a newborn not doing so well. Not taking feeds and what not..Anways.. so yes, as usual, lemme stop digressing and come back to the topic on hand,
So , many of us, after we are born, start getting positive feedbacks from the environment we live in and thus feel happy and continue to do activities which reward you further with more positive feedback..
Ya know, like, as babies, our parents are all applauding us for starting to walk, starting to get potty trained, doing well at school, applauding us at our first speech and what not.. this reward factor keeps us going and makes us want to keep doing more things which bring in reward, So, yes, WE START ENJOYING THE RIDE OF IT ALL AND WE WANT TO ENJOY IT EVEN MORE.
Much like a mouse gets caught up in the walking wheel in its cage or a person playing video games(after all, it is just a video, nothing is happening for real, yet we do it coz we feel we have achieved something). So, yes, we are all enjoying the ride in a way, thus we want to enjoy it further and thus, we don't want to die.
Let us discuss the spiritual reasons behind wanting to live
Again, as we grow up, we have had so much of interaction with the people around us, you know, parents, friends, lovers, inspirational figures, and we kinda give them the motivation and they give us the motivation to live. The word MOTIVATION IS KEY here.We, over our lifetime have developed connections where we motivate each other with positive feedback for day to day living, emotional support to make life livable and what not, so yes, during such a situation, we START SEEING IT AS A MORAL OBLIGATION OF OURS TO NOT LEAVE SOMEONE IN THE LURCH IN THIS MUTUAL CYCLE OF SELF MOTIVATION. we feel guilty, especially when we have young children ,who by their mere age, even more than our spouse or partners actually may not be able to thrive on their own or are DEPENDANTS as we call them. We feel that moral obligation to live it out for them because they are so dependant on you to get their daily positive feedback so that they can learn and do things and grow up and become self dependant or sometimes even basics like money to buy food and such,
So often,when i hear my patients tell me about how worried they are about their health coz ofcourse they have lil children to take care of and they see it as their moral obligation to nor orphan their children that way, I completely understand.
Which is also why, a 100 year old man or woman who has had a full life with no regrets, a good satisfactory job, spouse, kids who now have a spouse themselves and now have kids of their own and suddenly you see that you have done your moral duty of providing the positive feedback wherever it was needed for as long as it was needed and you did your job and you are satisfied that you have enjoyed the ride of life to for a loong time too, you are more prepared to die.
Speaking of which I am reminded of Anaclitic depression of Newborn.
A condition seen in newborn babies that don't get enough physical contact or emotional contact from either caregiver and ends up very listless, and almost ready to die. This is seen in other primate babies as well and in a starkly similar fashion too. If newborns don't recieve that physical or emotional contact right from birth, they will most likely die.. YOU KNOW, END OF LIFE.. coz ofcourse, baby sees no point to live.
So, to answer the question that I asked in the Header of this entry,Suppose, someone is born, and then grows up and at one point of time, is very dissatisfied with parents, with school, with work, no lovers, no emotional contacts, lives in seclusion, no body to show off work to , nothing to account for, no children to look after, no parents to look after or worry about, just plain ALONE! No satisfaction from work either-so, no work motivation either, Then would they still be scared to die? I guess not.. I guess, they would infact find it all so purposeless that they might attempt to end it all, much like maladapted caged zoo animals fresh out of its natural habitat..Hmmm, Suicide.. hmmmm.
