BellaOnline Forums Relationships Relationships Relationship- why?

Sometimes the relationships give more pain.
We still seek one. Is it because of our genes?

No, it's a natural mammalian herding instinct.
You have to split the emotional from the practical.
On one level, we are just like every other mammal on this planet. we herd, we find a mate, we reproduce, we have gestation periods, we have infidelity for biological reasons in that women look for the strongest, most reliable genetic composition of a male mate to give them a good offspring, and males play the field to find a suitable and impregnable female to do the same. Fidelity is possible, but not as common as you'd think or like. It's much the same in the animal kingdom, where 'mating for life' is more a phenomenon than the norm.

pretty basic and rudimentary, isn't it?

Then as a Human Race, we go and complicate things by bringing Morals, ethics, cultural attitudes, religious influences and conscience into it. We romanticise love, with novels, films and poets. We mistake lust for love, and attach so many extra paraphenalic customs, interpretations and definitions to every gesture.... wining, dining, roses, cards, love tokens and letters....
The entire human classical history is liberally littered with Romantic literature and words....
If you investigate this closely, you will find we're the only animal on the planet that does this.
Even 50 million chimps sat infront of a typewriter will never, between them, produce one line from shakespeare.
(Whoever worked this out had too much time on his hands.)

We form a dependency, and are convinced that our lives will be fuller, richer and more satisfying if we have a lifelong mate to exist with.

Unfortunately, as this forum will testify, this is rarely the case. But we do it anyway.

I have a partner. I love him to absolute bitty-bits.
But if the crapola were to hit the fan, I'd get over it, I certainly wouldn't hold a moritorium, wail and gnash my teeth and shed one single tear. And I certainly wouldn't actively go seeking another coupling.


Harsh?
Yes, quite.
Cold calculating and heartless?
No, not really.
Honest?
Yes. Quite definitely.

I mean, tell me I'm wrong.....

I do not want to comment upon you and your partner.

What you have said earlier is true.
But Alexandra, our mind makes us different from the animal world.
Are you recommending that we begin behaving like animal world to get peace?
Am I correct in my understanding?

Also, you said-
No, it's a natural mammalian herding instinct.
--------------------------------------------------------

I think that more than herding, it is the instinct to reproduce.

You can say about herding if somebody asks why we live in communities and not away in jungles separate from each other.

Making sense?

We already behave like the animal world, we simply don't realise it, or are convinced that by being at the top of the food chain, and imagining ourselves to be (or assuming we are) 'more intelligent', we don't think about ourselves in these terms.

As for finding peace, we already know how to do that too, but we don't do that either.

It's called 'attachment, craving and clinging' and it's at the root of all unsatisfactoriness and suffering.

Yes, but herding is what provides safety, security and to an extent, paradoxically, anonymity. So there is a certain connection, and guarantee of meeting a mate, through herding.
That's what I meant.

There is a huge difference.
Animals do not think so they are at peace.
Do you want humans to stop thinking?

Dogs are mammals. why do they not crave for herds?

They do in the wild. Remember they are descended from wolves. The hierarchy of wolves is in fact extremely interesting......When a family owns a dog, the family becomes the wolf pack.


Don't get me started. I trained as a dog behavioural specialist, and I help families with problem dogs...only, guess what? 9 times out of 10, it's the family that has the problem, not the dog!

But that's off-topic....

What on earth makes you believe animas do not think?

This is a mistake. Animals most certainly DO think, and many are extremely intelligent. They can be trained in all sorts of ways to help humans, like alert dogs for the deaf and blind, or sniffer dogs for the armed forces and the police..,..for example. They do not function on instinct alone, you see...