Are we simple, instinctive beings, or can we exist above our instincts?

Question from the Internet:

“Since we are made by, and we feel, think, and function by molecular interactions, why should we be held accountable for our actions? Shouldn’t physics and chemistry be the accountable ones?”

You are right. As long as our being is blind and instinctive, everything is determined by automatic molecular interactions, and we are 100% governed by our inherently self-serving, self-justifying, egocentric, and subjective “pleasure/pain” software, there is nothing that could be demanded from us.

And human history up to this point — with all of its helplessly recurring vicious cycles, including the blind and perpetual tumble of our own society from crisis to crisis — is the direct result of this blind and instinctive human development.

So we are truly not to blame for anything, not even for the greatest and most hideous crimes; they were all the blind and inevitable actions of the individual and collective human ego.

But this is not that simple.

The moment we are already aware of it, even if when we still do not know how we can actually change how we act and exist, we already become complicit in the crimes.

After all, if you can already declare that whatever we do is the result of some automatic internal actions and processes in us and we know that those actions result in destruction and suffering for all, we cannot close our eyes any longer, we cannot simply shrug our shoulders, and we cannot pretend as if everything was ok, and we can continue living this way, can we?!

This is the reason why most people stubbornly try to escape from the idea of recognizing the driving forces in us, to accept what our true desires and intentions are since they do not want to deal with the “recognition of evil” inside us and the inevitable consequence: the need to purposefully and actively change ourselves.

This is why our society is all about covering our tracks and making sure people have no chance to think or look into themselves. We have the incessant “circus and bread” entertainment, we have drugs, we have the neverending consumption and the rat race. And even when we “meditate,” we do that in order to reassure ourselves that inside we are good and peaceful, and we can transport ourselves into some illusion, far away from the truth.

But the reality is very cruel; the “Matrix” is glitching more and more. Sooner or later (and it seems it will be sooner), worsening crisis and multiple terrible events will cause such intolerable suffering for most of mankind that we will be forced to find that root cause — on the “molecular” or instinctive level — in ourselves which is the cause of all our suffering.

This is why Nature also gave us a unique Human mind and intellect to critically assess and get to know ourselves so we could also initiate the necessary self-changes and further self-development that can build a “higher and better” Human being from us. Then this truly Human being will be capable of acting and existing above and against the “molecular or instinctive” level of existence, justifying the label “Human being.”