Perhaps the Origin Doesn't Make the Species

I stopped caring very much about human origins years ago but couldn't explain to people (who obviously did care) exactly why I didn't care anymore, but now I think I can explain. It seems to me many people are preoccupied with the meaning and significance of 'how' we got to have the human experiences we have, and the idea that the origin of humanity might somehow help explain the purpose of humanity is perfectly understandable. So whether it was evolution, or a divinity (or divinities), or aliens, or some other process or some combination of processes, 'what separates us from the (other) animals' is usually part of a body of evidence either supporting or detracting from one or another of these theories.

Yes, it makes sense; except I don't think I really associate my human origin with my human purpose so much. The fact is (right now) our human origin is not a knowable thing (with any degree of acceptable certainty [to me]) while the facts of my experience are knowable things, and I feel very confident in the interactive nature of my physical body with my consciousness.

So if our 'human' consciousness, or what ever it is that separates us from (other) animal species, is an emergent phenomena from the sheer complexity of biology, genetics and evolution (as the scientist in this video seems to suggest), then that's all well and good (I'll honestly be an automatic fan of anything that 'makes me human'), but now I have these meaningful numinous (spiritual, religious) experiences that seem far more significant than the purpose (or lack of purpose) my evolutionary origin can satisfy.

While evolutionary theory can explain 'how' we came to have (some) experiences of meaning we have, it can't meaningfully explain 'why' as in purpose (unless the answer is 'no reason' - which [with apologies to Existentialism] is not meaningful ) without resorting to some sort of scientism. Unfortunately scientistic, evolutionary-biologic explanations of my experiences simply do not reference enough important pieces of my puzzle interior to have satisfactory explanatory power over the human biological meaning matrix.

What I recently realized is that the most meaningful piece for my interior purpose (and motivation) isn't what separates 'humans' (or human experience) from anything else (period), but rather what has the most explanatory power over what I experience as a human, over what I already have on my (human) interior framework. And one thing I already have there are some powerful experiences of meaning and significance that have now become a part of the order of my (human) existence.

On the other hand I am not arguing for 'divinely given purpose' for humanity either, for if I owe my origin to a divinity (or divinities) who claim a purpose for me then I have some faith the divinity would want my experiences (including experiences of and through my biology) to reveal the good purpose(s) the divinity has for me. And while I have been religious in the past, I haven't quite arrived at a divinely inspired personal purpose for my (human) life yet.

Thus, despite all the posible causal permutations and variations of human origination, it seems to me my experience always has primacy over my origin - at least as far as meaning is concerned.

Self Acceptance

I used to be quite religious, and I think now part of the reason I was religious was because I had a hard time accepting human nature, accepting myself or accepting other people; indeed I 'lost my faith' and left religion when I discovered that religion did not and could not, that I could not, make other people be better people, could not make other people want to be better, or even want to be bettered. I had to either accept other people's nature and desire as they were, or at least accept I could do nothing about them, and in this need for acceptance I realized neither the religion nor my faith could fix my inability to accept people as they were, they could only change the relative parts of our human nature, of my human nature, that I could and couldn't accept.

I like to think I have finally gained the acceptance I needed to have, finally learned the acceptance I needed to learn, but any learning I have managed is more due to philosophical exploration than anything else, and the most recent part of my acceptance education I think may have been the original root of my problem: self acceptance.

The key for me was the realization that people not only have different experiences and experience the same things differently (more compactly perhaps or more differentiated), but people also symbolize and represent those experiences differently - and having different experiences or using different symbols doesn't mean people have less learning, knowledge or wisdom, are less aware of the magnitude of their mind, the amazement of existence, or the splendor of their soul. Different is different and not necessarily better or worse, less or more, right or wrong, valid or invalid; to know anything more than people's difference we must need sift their interior, sift their soul, and the only interior and soul we have access to sift is our own.

So I started seeing nearly every instance of what other people do and say, whether or not I liked it or agreed with it, as merely different or similar symbols of their merely different or similar experience, and I began worrying less about other people's interior betterment and paid more attention to my own. And soon, by attentively analyzing my own interior symbols, I began seeing my previously unacceptable interior as merely different, not less, wrong, or invalid.

I am fortunate to have someone who loves and accepts me as I am, uxorious or not, who was unperturbed by my self discoveries, who is so anti-regimented in her assessment of self and others she refuses such establishing phrases ands labels like 'female led'; we just are who we are, have the relationship we have, have the symbols we have. Unsurprisingly, I find I increasingly agree with her. People just are as people are, and likely the most we will ever manage is a minimal mitigation of other people's needless pain and hurtful actions, and though I no longer feel impassioned, angry or inflamed about other people's actions, I definitely continue to feel painful sadness, sometimes acutely and unbearably so, at needless suffering.

I may no longer have religion, but I still believe; I believe in the power and transcending significance we individual humans experience while physically incorporated here on earth. I still have faith, just one less rigid and more accepting.