Well-developed Human Lives

"Conscience, and uniquely conscience, can compel us out of our own skins and into the skin of another, or even into contact with the Absolute. It is based in our emotional ties to one another. In its purest form, it is called love. And wonderfully, both mystics and evolutionary psychologists, who concur on not much else, agree that people by their normal nature are more likely to be loving than malevolent. This conclusion signifies a breathtaking departure from our usual, more cynical view of ourselves," writes Martha Stout in her fascinating book, The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us (Broadway Books, New Your, 2005.) 216.

Love defined as conscience in its purest form. Oh my!

Dr. Stout, a psychologist, names conscience as the seventh sense, and cites it as a necessary element to finding joy in life. She illustrates ways in which we find life lively and continuously interesting because we have an ability to imagine others' experiences, to share joys and sorrows and ordinary, little details of a day with others in our lives. She illustrates in her chapters how a psychopath, a sociopath, is constantly bored and needing stimulation because of the lack of sympathetic resonance with others. A resonant empathy rooted in conscience rooted in love.

Dr. Stout quotes the Dalai Lama as referring to people who don't feel obligated to others based on a sense of human connectedness as "people who don't have well-developed human lives. " Of the World Trade Center attacks, she quotes him as saying, "Technology is a good thing, but the use of technology in the hads of people who don't have well-developed human lives can be disastrous." (ibid., 213-214)

"... out of our own skins and into the skin of another, or even into contact with the Absolute..."

Fear vs. love. Are they both necessary learnings? Or are they, as Elissa commented on yesterday's writing, both fully inborn and fully learned? Or...? Ah, isn't pondering the Mystery fun? More on paradox soon.