We have highly developed brains, so much so that they have grown wild and even to some degree choke themselves out.

Or so we think. Oh, highly developed doesn’t necessarily mean good. They can be good, but whether they are or not is something to be looked at on a case by case basis, like a plant that outgrows its roots.

I was alluding to the egocentric attitude. There are much higher evolved intelligences. Indeed. Egotism is a serious problem, and subtle. I would argue though that ego centrism is just an innate aspect of human consciousness. Nature so far has gifted us with a limited point of view. We have to see things from where we are. This is necessary to allow an infinite world to explore all its potentials.

Now there are competing schools of thought regarding the potential of self-actualization of a person living from a genuinely self-directed base of awareness, and they are even rivals for money and having their agendas implemented.

Some see human beings as complex boxes, sort of like a computer, and they feel the only way to better society and the human condition is through a sort of psychological and social engineering, selective breeding, things like that. Again seeing people like plants in a green house.

Behavior modification? Yes. Behavior modification is itself now sort of a split field, because that research I keep quoting has turned up some things that compromise the initial assumptions of that school of thought.

They used to believe that the brain never changed past its physical maturity except due to damage or some sort of decay. They now know this is not the case. Not only do the neurons you have change their shape as needed, but your brain does grow new ones, just not quickly. This throws the whole broken box model into question, because if it’s not a static unchanging entity, they have to ask what will happen if they leave it alone.

That is heartening. For a long time they thought that was not so. They did for a long time think it was not so, but they have been proven wrong. I have seen a lot of my intuitions from my earlier days proven truth in recent years.

So now the argument is this. Is there a causative factor beyond the brain that can be shown to guide the seemingly purposeful changes in the brain? Is the brain changing for a reason other than organic behavior would suggest?

Like autonomic body behavior? Yes. Some think that is what happens in the brain also. Some say something more than that is involved. I agree with the second group personally.

G O D? They don’t officially say god. They think humanity might have a part of its being as a form of quantum principle that influences the body, but isn’t necessarily confined to the organic body.

Native Hawaiians have sensed this down through the ages and tried to describe it in many ways. Perhaps science will be heard where native intuition was ignored, but it is still to native intuitions credit that the thoughts were there to explore in the first place.

They were terrified of what we knew and tried to destroy it. The old wisdom has for a long time been attacked like that. It’s a manifestation of grace that it has survived in any form.

How this all relates to self-actualization is, why do we seek to fulfill ourselves at all?

It has a lot to do with survival I should think. Indeed, it has a lot to do with survival and even more than survival, growth or evolution if you prefer.

Grow or die? Grow or devolve. Devolve and take a poorer role in the world, become food, rather than care taker.

Isn’t this also pointing at a self-actualization conflict at large? Two, three, four systems of thought going bump in the night. Oh, indeed, and how that works out will either bring us a great gift, or a new and even worse sense of disease. But there is a mirroring insight to the self-actualization motivation that has also been proven true. They used to believe that people could be shaped by negative experiences, conditioned to peacefully accept restrictions and limitations due to punishing consequences for undesired actions. What they have discovered is that the avoidance behavior is unnatural. Beyond limited adaptive avoidance, the life form will eventually stop avoiding it, and instead ignore or attack it. Eventually, everyone stands up to pressure. It’s just a matter of how long it takes them to break.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~