Our Basic Human Nature: Why and how do we think, behave and act the way we do

We all have our own unique basic nature, that determine the way we think, behave, feel and act with outside world. Generally, our basic nature remains unchanged throughout our lifetime. Though we keep on changing in many ways as we undertake our journey. That's why, other people who interact with us from time to time also know about our nature. Very often we use words such as 'good person', 'short tempered', 'kind hearted', 'loving and compassionate', 'cruel', 'criminal' and so on for our basic nature based on our perception. These are totally subjective experiences with other people. There is a huge and wide range of human attributes through which we know and categorise others in respect of our basic nature.

Human Nature:

In this article, I will attempt to explain briefly about certain core characteristic of our basic nature. I am sure if we learn more about human nature, it will help us in knowing others in better ways and that can surely improve our relationships with others. We may become more conscious, mindful and awake about others and the world around us. Most of the things which I am going to explain about our core nature, you may be knowing them but I will put them in proper perspective to understand and appreciate them.

When we discuss about our basic nature, a question arises whether we are good human beings with some degree of 'evilness' or we are evil people with certain 'goodness'. Different people have their own views depending upon their experiences and upbringing. If we read history, we find people with extreme cruelty and ruthlessness such as Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin. These are the people who massacred thousand with extreme brutality. We know Genghis Khan, the great barbarian leader of 13th century, who created an empire to the cost of millions of lives, and left ruins of cities on his way. He killed as many as 40 million people, nearly 10% of world population, isn't it unbelievable!

We also find names in history who set their examples in their 'goodness and kind-heartedness'. But one thing is certain that there are more names in the first category of so called cruel and brutal people. We have more inclination to know more about such people. As Plato observed, there are relatively few ways to do good, but there are countless ways to do evil, which can therefore have a much greater impact on our lives, and the lives of other beings capable of suffering. For this reason, some philosophers maintain that preventing evil is more important than promoting good in our conduct.

On the other hand, philosopher and naturalist Francis Bacon expressed that "the inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man……. It is our uniqueness as a species, coupled with our fundamental character of goodness, that opens the door for the message in our cells to seed real and lasting change in our lives." Abraham Maslow, one of the great psychologists of the 20th century, believed that "people are all decent underneath." His unwavering faith in our goodness remained through the last days of his life, when he wrote that humankind "has a higher nature" as part of our essence and our species can be "wonderful out of their own human and biological nature."

Is the ugliness hidden in us, in the clothes of goodness? Coming back to the difficult question, whether we are good human beings with hidden evilness or we are evil people with element of 'goodness', I want you to read a story, written by Kahlil Gibran, Lebanon born Prophet. The story is that God created the world and everything else that was needed. He looked around and felt that two things were missing namely beauty and ugliness. So, these two things were the last things he created. Naturally, he gave beautiful clothes to the beauty and to ugliness, he gave ugly clothes. He sent them both from the heaven to the earth.

It was a long journey and by the time they reached the earth they were feeling tired and dusty, so the first thing they decided to do was to take a bath. It was early morning, the sun was just rising, and they went to a lake, dropped their clothes on the bank, and both jumped in. It was really refreshing and cool, and they enjoyed it. Beauty went swimming far into the lake, and when she looked back, she was surprised; ugliness was missing. She came back and found that her clothes were missing, too. Then beauty understood what had happened: Ugliness had taken her clothes and run away.

The story ends by saying that since then, ugliness is hidden in the clothes of beauty, and the beauty is compulsorily wearing the clothes of ugliness. Beauty is running after ugliness, searching for her, but she has not yet been able to find her. So, this story fits very well into the current political social affairs. Ugliness and evilness needed something to hide and so they started wearing a mask of goodness and good people had no idea that ugliness and evilness have stolen their clothes.

So, the politicians along with other criminals, crooks and rogues, who are the symbol of evilness and ugliness, are wearing white clothes of goodness. They are presently ruling innocent and good people of society. They may not be more than 5% of the population but they affect negatively and exert lot of bad influence on others and society as a whole. (The story of Kahlil Gibran is quoted from The Book of Understanding by OSHO)

We undertake our journey, from birth to death, deeply intertwined with three different sets of people Human, human and human -- these are the three prime determinants that make up a human journey. The first one is comprised of our biological parents and forebears. The second is the set of people who nurture the new-born and influence his or her early childhood experiences. Last is the set of people who cross paths with us and make a contribution to our upbringing. This may include influencing our thoughts, behaviours, actions, and pivotal events. We undertake our journey from birth to death deeply intertwined with these three sets of people. Directly and indirectly, they assist us in reaching our final destination in life. In this way, the complex and undulating journey through innumerable experiences leads us to our final destination.

The genes we are born with don't change, but their expression make a huge difference in our basic nature: The first set of humans, those who have determined our genetic blueprint, have set the stage on which the mind is exposed to the outer world. The genetic material in every cell carries the blueprint for every aspect of our physical body, from our height and complexion to the risks of critical illnesses, such as cancer. No two humans are genetically identical -- yet we are all 99.9 percent the same! The genes we carry from our parents and ancestors make every individual unique. There are estimated to be around 20,000 to 25,000 human genes. The genes we are born with don't change, but their expression can vary substantially, especially during our formative years. How genes work is a highly complex process. Our experiences leave a chemical 'signature' on the genes which determine whether and how the genes are expressed.

Our early childhood experience makes us what we are, by and large, today: The second set of influential humans, the parents and other caregivers, deeply affect the infant and establish a close link with his or her mind. Neurological research shows that the early childhood years play a key role in children's brain development. Leaving deep imprints on the child's mind, some of those early experiences may overshadow some aspects of genetic constitution written by the biological parents. The interaction of genes and experience determines childhood mental health. The physical, emotional, and social development of young children has a direct effect on their overall development and on the adult they become. The emotional well-being of young children is directly tied to the functioning of their parents and the families in which they live.

Numerous studies and simple observation show that adverse and traumatic experiences during childhood often lead to violent and criminal behaviour in adolescence and adulthood. Young children who experience recurrent abuse or neglect, domestic violence, or an addicted parent are particularly vulnerable. The quality of care and nurturing that is provided by the parents has greatest impact on the future of their children. Recent studies confirm that the first five years are particularly critical for the development of the child's brain. They are especially important in the development of learning skills, as well as social and emotional abilities. That's the reason, our early childhood experiences are so critical in creating the foundation of our basic nature.

Our basic nature doesn't change throughout our life time You may have noticed that we find it extremely difficult to change our basic temperament, mindset and other characteristics of core personality during the course of time. Unless there is some drastic turn of events in one's life, due to death of very close one, traumatic experience, deep emotional setback, major financial loss, or some serious eventuality, there is a little change in one's personality. When we meet someone closer after years, there may have been changes in her/his physical appearance but once we start interacting then we find nothing much has changed. Our basic nature remains more or less the same. We also call it core personality. It is a product of social interaction.

We are social animals and love to stay in our comfort zone. We all construct our 'comforts' and tend to live there. Till we are disturbed or the external situations are such that we need to do something very different, we do not wish to step out of that comfort area. There is an unknown fear in us against the potential change. Due to negativity bias, we think more about negative impact of likely change, rather than positive changes that may come with the change. Within the comfort zone, we may be earning our livelihood, comfortable living, fixed routine, having a set of 'good' friends and lovely family. And if something disrupts it, we feel extremely uncomfortable and we react sharply if we are forced to get out of our comfort zone. Thus, we often end up missing opportunities that may have come across, if we had accepted the change gracefully.

Even if we want to change our habits and get out of certain patterns, it's not an easy task. We need tremendous will power or determination to harness our mind. And by changing those, we keep referring them as if we have changed ourselves. But those are just the few patterns of our life. Our habitual behaviour is hardwired in our brain. Whenever we experience something for the first time, new neural connections are formed. Later, when we repeat the same thing, those neural connections get hardwired. This is the reason that we feel the great difficulty in changing the habitual behaviour or pattern.

Surprising, we know very little about ourselves: We have a poor self-awareness. When we ask people in general, whether they are self-aware, the answer would, as expected, be positive. However, you will be surprised to know that majority of us are hardly self-aware. We have, invariably, very little self-awareness, though we are confident of possessing the same. To be self-aware is a meta skill, and limited, often rarely, to find in ourselves. Had we been more self-aware and mindful, we would have been living far more peacefully and co-existing amicably with fellow beings. One of the basic problems pertaining to modern age like mental stress, aggression, intolerance, violence, hatred etc is lack of desired level of self-awareness among masses.

According to the organisational psychologist and researcher, Dr Tash Eurich, though 95% of people say that they're self-aware but only 10-15% of people actually are. It means nearly 80% of people are lying to themselves. Their level of self-awareness differs from person to person, from highly ignorant to partially self-aware. We humans in general are very arrogant about our own knowledge and awareness. Have you ever met a person saying 'he/she knows very little about himself/herself? The answer would obviously be 'no'. What a great irony about us – knowing so little about ourselves, but feeling so confident about 'self-awareness'.

In many cases, a person knows lesser of himself / herself than what others know about them. Such persons are so self-absorbed and self-centred in their own little world that they are least self-aware and don't really know about themselves well. Unfortunately, no one teaches about this skill to us. Majority of us are ignorant of what self-awareness is and why it's so important for us to succeed in life?

An internationally known psychologist and best seller author, Daniel Goleman calls self-awareness as the key to emotional intelligence. He says, "without self-awareness, we can't know what's happening to ourselves, let alone manage relationships with others. It's not enough to simply notice what's happening in your inner world. What you do with the thoughts and feelings after you notice them also matters a great deal". He further explains that self-awareness means the ability to monitor our inner world – our thoughts and feelings. Self-awareness is of two types. First, being aware about our thoughts, feelings and other bodily sensations. The second type is external awareness, what others think about ourselves.

Self-awareness is the ability to focus on ourself and how our actions, thoughts, or emotions affect ourselves and others around us. Not only we should thoroughly know about ourselves but also know, how others perceive us. It's about knowing how we behave under different circumstances. How we think, act and react in various situations of life? What kind of thoughts and feelings we are experiencing every moment? If we are self-aware, then we know all these things about ourselves. We are always very confident that we know all about ourselves but unfortunately that's not the case. Our attention doesn't go to this side. Isn't it difficult to believe, that we are so ignorant about our own self?

We all have an inflated image of our own self: invariably all of us, think 'better than others', 'know more compare to others', 'having greater experience in certain areas'. Very common quality indeed we exhibit. No doubt, there are reasons, why we generally think like this. First of all, we don't want to confess or admit ourselves that I am an average human beings and others are certainly better in some areas and in few others we may be better. But always thinking that 'I' am better than others may be wholly incorrect. Second, we don't want to admit our own weaknesses and flaws before others. To hide those attributes, either we justify and rationalize them or we put forward our 'inflated image' before others. We don't want to get hurt.

Some others genuinely feel that others are 'not good', inadequate and even inferior to them. So, their image of 'better than others' gets justified. We all have a deep desire to become superior at least in certain aspects. In order to preserve that image, wherever needed we may attempt to blame others or the environment if something goes wrong, rather than blaming ourselves. When we commit any mistake or error, we, very commonly, try to rationalize what we did. We want to keep our self-image intact and keep satisfying ourselves by blaming the external factors rather than looking inside and find fault. This very attribute of our personality also resists changing ourselves. We don't really feel to change ourselves for our 'better version'. In fact, we keep on reinforcing our own image

Another very common thing, you may have observed that those who are genuinely better or more intelligent, they will never boast or show off their 'superior trait' to others. While on the other hand, those who are really bad, unintelligent type, are found to be far more confident than others. A very common quality of human nature we have. This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, a type of cognitive bias explained by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in which people believe they're smarter and more skilled than they actually are. Besides, those people with high ability tend to underestimate how good they are. 'High-ability individuals tend to underrate their relative competence, and at the same time assume that tasks that are easy for them are just as easy for other people'. The smarter we are, the less we think we know -- because we invariably realize just how much there is to actually know.

The people who feel that they are 'better than others' have low level of self-awareness. It means that they really don't know well about themselves and they keep on carrying their 'superior' image. It's very difficult for them to get convinced that they are, like others, average people with certain better qualities compared with others. We should all realize that we are unique individuals and we can't compare with others under totality of circumstances. In fact, more we gather knowledge or learn more about the world around us, we feel how little we know. We are completely incapable of knowing true reality of the world. Those who are more mindful and self-aware, they know their limitations, that's the reason they are more humble and very prompt in confessing their weaknesses or limitations.

Our happiness level generally remains the same. I am not sure whether you have noticed or not, our happiness level fluctuates within a narrow range. We generally return to their usual level of happiness. Each one of us occupies a particular place on a scale of, let's say, 1 to 10 (1 being most unhappy and 10 the happiest). We more or less hover around that emotional baseline, which remains relatively stable through all our days. This is known as the hedonic treadmill gradient. This is a common phenomenon in which people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. Since so much of our happiness is determined by our thoughts and actions, which tend to be habitual and unchallenged, our happiness level remains generally static, with only slight fluctuations.

One study has found that 50% of our happiness is biologically determined -- i.e., through genes. Then 40% of happiness is controlled by our thoughts, behaviour, and the actions we take. Our choices are entirely in our own hands. The remaining 10% is determined by life's circumstances. If we react automatically to all difficult situations, how can we remain happy? Appropriate, mindful response to life's circumstances, driven by clear, insightful thoughts can make our life happy.

We have, more or less, a permanent sense of satisfactoriness: Suffering includes those feelings which we don't like. It includes right from frustration and discontentment to intense anguish and sadness of losing someone very close to us. We have been evolved like this to suffer. It's an essential part of our life. Therefore, suffering is universal and unavoidable.

We humans have been evolved to suffer. It's primarily because of our inherent nature of mind. Our mind is generally in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction and restlessness. It's like a drunken monkey, restless and jumping from one set of thoughts to another, like eating and throwing away half eaten fruits. When the mind is disturbed, it's becomes distressed and difficult to control negative thoughts. Despite our best efforts, most of us fail to calm our mind. As we generally don't know how to manage our mind and thoughts during troubling times, suffering aggravates.

According to Buddhism, suffering lies at the root of life itself. We are born into a world of pain, and all experience sadness and loss. Obviously, we experience great joy as well, but suffering seems to be a dominant influence in our lives. Our mind is a desire-generating machine. When one desire is fulfilled another bigger one arises. We also get attached to the outcome of desire. Like, we should have bigger sized luxurious flat in metro city. We feel if we start living there, we will become happy. We are generally looking to "improve" our life's conditions, to accumulate more and more material things, to gain more power and prestige.

In their pursuit, we create mental distress and unhappiness, resulting in mental suffering. This is how our mind then become dissatisfied and restless. For one reason or the other, we are not happy and contended with life. That's the reason, we can never be perfectly happy with our lives.

Our life oscillates between two extremes, from acute suffering to mild satisfactions. There are various shades and forms of suffering in our life. Even if we are very rich, powerful and high statured, we are not free from suffering. Are we born to suffer? To escape from suffering, we tend to seek pleasure, but unfortunately, we end up becoming more discontented and unsatisfied. Dissatisfaction is an integral part of life because it's our useful trait. We have been evolved because of perpetual dissatisfaction and desire to improve or do something better.

We act and behave with a motive of "pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain": Hedonic theory, or theory of psychological hedonism, is the idea that human behaviour is motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (or, more accurately, displeasure). Its origins can be traced to the beginnings of Western philosophy.

Psychological hedonists tend to construe "pleasure" very broadly, so as to include all positive feelings or experiences, such as joy, satisfaction, ecstasy, contentment, bliss, and so forth. Likewise, "pain" is typically understood so as to include all negative feelings or experiences, such as aches, discomfort, fear, guilt, anxiousness, regret, and so forth. Even construing pleasure and pain widely, however, it is implausible to think that all acts successfully produce pleasure or reduce pain. People are often mistaken about what will achieve those results, and, in some cases, aiming at pleasure is actually counterproductive (the so-called paradox of hedonism). Consequently, psychological hedonism is usually put forward as a claim about what agents believe or take to be pleasure-producing and pain-reducing.

Pain stimuli and its consequences are more immediate than pleasure stimuli. So, we all spend a great deal of time and effort avoiding pain. This is normal, but can develop into an unhealthy preference in life towards pain-avoidance, which in extreme cases becomes the sole and self-destructive purpose of life.

Similarly, the stimulus of pleasure –or hedonism– is the idea that life can only be lived to the full when pleasure is the primary goal. Extreme hedonism is self-destructive, as anyone who reads the news knows, because gratification becomes harder and harder to achieve.

Obviously, balance is the key. It makes sense to avoid pain since pain impedes function. It also makes sense to seek pleasure since happiness or comfort is the normal state of human beings. However, it is accepted that there are limits on an individual's pursuit of happiness or pleasure which are imposed by legal, ethical, familial and common-sense constraints.

Since Epicurus in the third century B.C. we have known that nature has placed us under two masters: Pleasure and Pain. Freud took the matter further when he described the "Id", a powerful, animalistic force buried deep in our unconscious mind that seeks immediate gratification of all needs, wants, and urges, with resultant feelings of pleasure and pain-avoidance. He noted that later on children develop a counter-force, the "Ego", which exerts some control over the appetites of the "Id" so that we do not overindulge or exhibit unacceptable behaviour.

The idea that we can achieve happiness by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is both intuitive and popular. The truth, however, is very different: Pleasure alone cannot make us happy. We need pain to provide a contrast for pleasure; without it, life becomes dull, boring, and downright undesirable. Like a chocoholic in a chocolate shop, we soon forget what it was that made our desires so desirable in the first place.

The Neuroscience of Seeking Pleasure and Avoiding Pain: Specific neurons may drive animals' motivation to seek pleasure or avoid pain. GABA appears to drive pleasure-seeking behaviour, while glutamate reinforces avoidance learning designed to avoid pain. The authors sum up the main takeaway of their research: "Here we show that GABAergic and glutamatergic VP neurons selectively control behaviour in opposing motivational contexts."

For the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), a good life was one in which pain is minimised. The sustained absence of pain grants us tranquillity of mind, or ataraxia. This notion has something in common with our modern understanding of happiness. To be "at peace with yourself" marks the happy person out from the unhappy one and no one would imagine that a life filled with pain could be a good life. But is the minimisation of pain really the essence of happiness? According to Epicurus, reason teaches that pleasure is good and pain bad, and that pleasure and pain are the ultimate measures of good and bad. This has often been misconstrued as a call for rampant hedonism, rather than the absence of pain and tranquillity of mind that Epicurus actually had in mind. Indeed, Epicurus explicitly warned against overindulgence, because overindulgence so often leads to pain.

We are all self-absorbed and lost in our own inner world

Most of us when we are engaged in a conversation, we speak and when other one is speaking, we are preparing ourselves what to say next. We are, most of the time, completely absorbed and lost in 'self-talk'. We generally don't live in present. We are mostly planning, anticipating and preparing ourselves for the future. We have a tendency to live in future. We are mindless and absent-minded when we were required to be present on the moment. We therefore lose precious moments of present. Moreover, we are busy in thinking about our personal problems relating to financial issues, relationships, physical and mental health. Most of us one problem or the other these issues.

Our thinking mind is awfully busy in making our own stories. Adding more and more into the script of our own mega-story. In this story, 'I' is the hero (or heroin), who can't do anything wrong. If we commit any mistake, then we tend to blame other or the circumstances. You hardly find anyone saying that he/she has done anything wrong. Besides, we always have a tendency to overestimate ourselves, in our own eyes. We all are better than others. If 90% of people are thinking to be superior than others, then who is 'below average' or 'inferior'. We have literally no time to think about others (off course except our family and very close ones). It's a harsh reality that you are on your own. As everyone else is lost in their own inner world.

We all spend most of our mental energy thinking about ourselves. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. Self-reflection is how we become stronger, which in turn makes us better equipped to help others.

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