I wrote this, and you are reading this.
Based on that, we can assume that both of us have decided to live in society.
Either of us could have chosen to live in the wild, disconnected from society, but we did not.
If it was just you or me alone in the wild, we could do anything we please, no rules except survival.
But in society, we have to accept that not everyone can have the best of everything.
We all have to compromise.
By choosing to live in society, we have agreed to compromise.
Why do we accept society with compromise?
We expect that we can get a better life for ourselves and our families than if we lived alone in the wild.
We expect that we can give something we are good at producing and get something we need from someone who is good at producing that.
What if I gave close to nothing, but took whatever I wanted from others?
I would be punished by the law of the land.
What if I gave others a lot, got close to nothing in return?
I would have a horrible life.
The equilibrium is where we give as much as we can give in return for getting as much as we can of what we want.
An ideal society is when everyone gives the maximum value they can for others and, in return gets the maximum possible value for themselves.
An optimal individual aligned with an individual society would have a stance like:
I am passionate about/good at X. My goal is to keep getting better at X, so I can create maximum value as I can for others based on X, and get the most value I can from others in return, for the best life for me and my loved ones.
But reality feels far from ideal for most.
Most of us feel we don’t get as much as we want, and we give more than we would like to give.
Consider this.
What kinds of things define most people (in others’ eyes, or if you ask them)? Things like:
- nationality
- religion
- race
- caste
- occupation
- employer
- wealth
- power
- designation
- political affiliation/ideology
- etc.
What kinds of things do people want? There are a few:
- More value for their identity - nation, religion, race, caste, employer, etc.
- More money or power etc.
- Or something vague like happiness or bliss or peace.
Occasionally, some people will identify themselves by their passions/skills amidst some of those.
None of these reflect the optimal individual stance above.
Why is that?
We identify with and focus on things other than ourselves and other human beings.
Look at the list of things we identify with.
Most of these are non-human entities.
Non-human entities are not living in the sense that we humans are, but nevertheless they are similar to us in that they compete with other entities (human and non-human) for resources.
These non-human entities thrive based on their “human subscriber count” - the more people willing to focus on their nation or religion or employer or race, etc., the more the entity can thrive.
However, these non-human entities started mostly as tools of convenience.
We defined them as a tool some group of people needed at some time to categorize/classify/organize society.
Even money was a tool of convenience - a way to store and forward value over time.
Most non-human entities are more powerful than any individual human or humans as a species.
Most non-human entities beget other “babies”.
For example, money begat financial products and entities which begat other financial products, etc.
Most of the world is subscribed to one or more of these non-human entities that compete with each of us humans for resources, over humans that are the concrete elements of society that actually matter, and should matter in an ideal society.
So, what does this mean?
We are not living optimal lives in an ideal society because we serve other entities over ourselves and our fellow human beings. And these non-human entities then become more powerful than humans and increase value for themselves over any human or humans as a whole. And this in turn makes each of us less optimal in a farther from ideal society.
No wonder we all feel unhappy.
We are not giving as much as we can to maximize others’ value.
And we are unhappy that others are not giving us as much as we feel we should be getting from others.
And the two feed each other to make us more miserable.
So, what is the solution?
All non-human entities have a role and a place and provide value to society. And we should enjoy, celebrate, accept them.
But we should prioritize humans over non-human entities, in our core life and work.
Follow the law, be non-violent, fulfil our duties in society.
Do the right thing by focusing on and prioritizing humans.
The more humans we delight/empower based on what we do best, the more society will shift towards its ideal state, and overall human sat scores will lift up.
The more we serve entities that compete with us humans for resources over humans, the further we move from the ideal society, and the less happy we are about our own quality of life.
The choice is yours.