EXISTENCE: The Quest To Fulfilling Three Basic Human Instincts: Love, Life And Power

By Charles Mwewa
Guest Writer

Hate, greed and selfishness do not motivate us to do, or not do. They are side-effects, or rather, the result of misunderstanding or mishandling of the three natural instincts of love, life and power.

Human beings, like animals and plants, do not intend towards destruction or evil; they are wired to tilt towards love, life or power. Nature, if observed, objectively, gives us ample evidence of this thesis. Evil, death and chaos, are, therefore, the greatest detour in human existence. They are both foreign to human experience and potential.

No human being hates, destroys or commits evil without creating internal conflicts in their deepest existence. It is a struggle to commit evil; man has to silence or conquer the internal “voice” that dictates love, life or power (power here is positive power, not a tendency towards dominance, but towards creativity and order).

Human beings have three inalienable natural instincts: love, life and power.

Love
Human beings naturally tend towards love, not hate or revulsion. Human beings, left in their natural habitat, will tend to love.

First, love is dispensed at three levels: family, companionship and community. First, there is filial love (family love) – which is love naturally reserved for the family and closest companions. It is natural in every animal, including humans. It is there in all of us and it grows with nurture. It takes care of the infants and continues to exert its influence on siblings, even in adulthood. It is eternal love for the family.

Second, there is companion or romantic or sexual or erotic love. It is geared towards appreciation of human qualities and nature. It intends to continue existence. With this love, we appreciate each other and want to be part of each other. It is manifested through the desire for sexual intercourse, for example. Its ultimate goal is appreciation and continuity.

Third, there is community or agape love. It is love reserved for God or humanity in general. It must be unconditional love, because it aims at unifying creation. Without this love, communities can break up and social order could disintegrate. It generates inner peace towards God and towards one another. This is the love that makes our existence desirable – because we feel and believe that someone or some being is there for us.

Life
Human beings tend towards life, and not decay, destruction or death. If humans had the power, they would love life to continue unperturbed, desiring continuity, rather than stoppage. This is the reason why humans strive to invent medicines and conditions that make life sustainable. In reality, humans do not want to kill – for any reasons – but, of course, they are overcome by other compunctions and objectives. The life instinct can manifest in three forms: food, survival and comfort.

First, our basic instinct is towards food (which includes water) and is part of our broad natural strategy to be alive, and not to die. We are created to naturally respond by desiring food, in order to keep pumping the life machine. This is the reason that humans have been able to discover foods and medicines, in both civilized and primitive societies. Animals and plans do the same.

Second, survival is part of the life-instinctive design. People, animals and plants, alike, are genetically predesigned and predisposed towards survival. Inside each of the creation are mechanisms to cope with viruses, bacteria or “foreign” substances until they are overcome. The body produces its own “defensive” mechanisms, and so does everything in nature. Snakes, for instance, bite primarily to protect themselves, not instinctively because of hatred.

Third, life tends towards comfort, and not discomfiture, unless there is negligence. As humans, for example, we have internal mechanisms to create comfort – whether it is to conquer inclement weather, to provide shelter to ourselves and our loved ones, to defeat heat and droughts or to survive against actions beyond our control in nature.

When we are sick, our bodies react strongly against the disease and we always “believe” we are going to survive and not die, unless the former triumphs. We design and develop mechanisms and defenses against diseases and accidents. We “fight” death, unless it prevails, and it is not natural to desire to terminate ourselves (suicide).

Comfort exists at two levels: inside comfort (desire to be at peace within our hearts and minds. It is the reason we desire to be, and remain, healthy); and outside comfort (the desire to live in sanitary and clean environs and to be free from danger). We create secure fences and attempt to eliminate anything that jeopardizes our security and safety.  These two levels complement each other – because people and nature always desire to live in harmony within and without.

Power
Humans tend towards taking charge, exerting control over nature and environment. Power is a gift from God, to order love and life. Without power, nature would be in chaos. Power exists at three levels: family, social, and spiritual.

First, family: parents have power over how the family runs and survives. This order cannot be interrupted or trifled with, otherwise, there will be dysfunction and delinquency. Parents are naturally wired to exert control and leadership, to govern love and life at home.

Second, social: politics create an atmosphere of compliance for the larger purpose of creating order and solidarity. People organize themselves, politically, in order to solve larger social and communal challenges. Politics “regulate” love and life at the city or polity level. People’s choice of the form of government does not matter, what matters is that whatever form of government they choose, it must be able to solidify social order and provide leadership in the broader management of love and life. If a government fails to do these, no matter what its form, it has contributed to that social polity’s chaos, deficiency or destruction. Power enables “State” apparatuses to function so that people can have freedom to innovate, experiment and enhance the natural instincts of love and life.

Third, spiritual: God demands to be obeyed so that He can govern people’s eternal affairs in love. There is a natural tendency to turn towards finding inner peace and solidarity in all humans. The way they achieve this is a question of practical ethics or morality. However, no matter where they are, humans find ways to link to a supernatural force, believed to have ultimate power over their love and life, including their souls. This “higher” power is manifested in religious dispositions and faith inclinations. To be efficacious, this higher force must transcend both love and life. It must have the internal force to override human instincts and recreate order where it has been disrupted. This God-factor is necessary for both internal and external human government.

Nature has given power to each human, animal and plant life to “govern” itself. To do this, both in nature and in social life, there must be laws or rules that order love and life. Without this legal or moral force, there will be no continuity or existence. Power contends against the “unnatural” tendencies towards hatred, destruction or chaos. Abuse of power is, therefore, a great disruption in the natural equilibrium paradigm, and it must be silenced before it destroys the natural balance of love, life and power.

All humans are, in fact, the same – anywhere and everywhere – and all of them succumb and subscribe to this order of being. Slight differences may exist, but all humans strive for love, life and power in order to exist. Hatred, death/destruction and chaos, are unnatural and a cancer to existence, and must not be allowed to grow and thrive in the human vineyard.