Biology & Evolution Make Us Selfish, Selfless, & Synergistic

The idea of Selfish, Selfless, Synergy captures us as humans. EO Wilson’s book, “The Meaning of Human Existence”, explains how evolution and biology made us this way.

We want to be selfish and selfless because we want to improve our situation and in our evolution, both techniques worked in different ways. As he describes, for the greater good, cooperation was better than competition because it can help us all benefit. For example, when an individual is cooperative and altruistic, humans reduce their advantage in competition to a comparable degree with other members but this also increases survival and reproduction for the whole group. This situaiton means humans are forever conflicted by their prehistory and its multilevel selection. This history left us in suspended, unstable and conflicted states that we forever keep changing. We often bounce back and forth between the two extremes positions, selfish and altruistic, that created us.

As it turns out, individual selection favors sin and group selection favors virtue. It is the useful past and value of these different positions that pulls us and has left us conflicted. He suggests this internal conflict of conscience afflicts all of us – except psychopaths. Therefore, we must understand that we should not feel bad by those selfish urges, its our genetics. Upon review, however, neither way is ideal. If we give in to individual selection, it would dissolve society. If on the other hand we give in to groups, this would make us angelic angels meaning we would become outsized ants. This also means that if we want to do good and improve our lots in life, we must consider beyond our initial pulls.

He also suggests this internal conflict in conscience caused by our competing levels of natural selection is more than just an arcane subject for theoretical biologists to ponder. As he explains, it is not the presence of good or evil tearing at one another, it is a biological trait fundamental to understanding the human condition. These opposed selection pressures during our genetic evolution of humans produced this unstable mix of innate emotional responses. This conflict caused an instability of human emotions, however he is urgent to recommend that this is a quality we should keep. We should keep this trait because it is this internal conflict that is the essence of human character and the source of our creativity.

In other words, WE NEED: SELFISH-SELFLESS-SYNERGY. To me, Selfish, Selfless, Synergy SOLVES the internal conflict that afflicts all of us by quenching all of these desires. We selfishly crave things for our self, however we want to be and live with other people who like us and are good to us, so we need to be selfless. We want that but we also want to have a better tomorrow. Therefore we need synergy. This is what I have dedicated my life to help accomplish. After all, what better way to satisfy my selfish, selfless, synergistic desires than to be SELFISH-SELFLESS & SYNERGISTIC?

The outcome of Selfish, Selfish, Synergy is the creation of all good. Biologically it satisfies our needs and desires evolution made innate as it helps make the world a better, more livable place for everyone and everything. To satisfy our biological and evolutionary needs we should practice paneugenesis which generates all good by creating pervasive, reciprocal, SELFISH, SELFLESS, SYNERGISTIC interactions so everyone and everything benefits. (Short video below describes this concept)

I look forward to hearing about how you help everyone benefit by doing what is necessary, that is being SELFISH-SELFLESS & SYNERGISTIC to satisfy your biological and evolutionary destiny.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

Pause to Benefit Everyone & Everything

Thomas Friedman is a NYT columnist and author I enjoy. I have enjoyed many of his columns and books. He has written 7 and I have read 3 of his books, I am now reading a fourth, Thank You For Being Late: An optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. So far I have read his, Hot Flat and Crowded: Why we need a green revolution and how it can renew America, The World is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century and That Used to Be Us: How America fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back books. I recommend all of them.

Each time I read his books I get a fresh and helpful perspective because he gives a very comprehensive view of what is going on and also how we got there. I just started reading his new book and already have gained a few valuable perspectives. In the beginning he discusses how this book came about. The anecdote is about how he normally has breakfast meetings to make the best use of his time. On some occasions, however, who he is to meet is late. Upon reflection, he realized that when the other person(so) were late, it provided him with some unplanned extra time. He then realized this time was of profound benefit. It was of benefit to him because it was a pause.

To fully understand why he found the pause of benefit, he explains: When you pause a machine, it stops, that is a mechanistic outcome. However, when we pause, being organismic, we start. By start he explains when we pause we reflect, rethink, and reimagine what is possible as we reconnect to our deep beliefs (values). Pause enables us to reimagine a better path.

Although this seems counterintuitive, choosing to pause can benefit everyone and everything. A pause allows us to review, reflect and reimagine how to do it better. The go, go rush of today causes us to forget we should pause. A pause can help us discover how we can generate comprehensive benefits by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

This also relates to last Monday’s post (1/9/17), “Talk without your phone: Everything Benefits”. This post highlighted Simon Sinek’s discussion about phone use. Our phones cause us to never be disconnected and they don’t give us a chance to pause.

I also learned something else from Mr. Friedman, he explained columns, like this post, are not designed to just inform, they are designed to influence and provoke a reaction of more thought about the subject. Like a columnist, as Thomas Friedman explains, I am in the lighting and heating business. My posts are attempts to illuminate and inspire you. With the desire to make a positive impact on the world, I hope these last posts have inspired you to pause without your phone so you can reimagine and reinvent a better tomorrow so everyone and everything benefits.

I look forward to hearing about your successes — please share how you are able to pause and them improve.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

Talk without Your Phone – Everything can Benefit

In a great discussion with Simon Sinek, author of “Start With Why”(TED talk at bottom), he describes an issue of millennials. In this discussion he describes a method, talking face to face without our phones, for how we can make it better for people and organizations. In other words a way so everyone and everything benefits. To me this opportunity for all of us, not just for millennials.