Does the “survival instinct” define us as human beings?

Question from the Internet:

“Is the survival instinct the basis of everything we do?”

Yes. Our sense of existence and preserving life is our most important activity and driving force. The moment we sense life, we feel ourselves existing we automatically and instinctively start securing and caring for our continuing existence.

This is true for each and every element in Nature; we are not unique in this respect.

When we look at all the basic activities we make efforts for, like fulfilling the desires for food, sex, family, shelter, power, control, and knowledge about our surroundings, we are not any different from animals, especially from more developed ones.

There is a uniqueness to humans, but we haven’t explored that consciously so far, although some people, especially philosophers, touched upon it in a disconnected “philosophical” way without many practical implications.

Human beings are the only “creatures” in Nature’s system with the conscious ability to ask about the meaning and purpose of life.

It is good that we want to secure our existence in any given conditions.

But what is the actual and exact reason we were born? Is life nothing else but survival and the blind and ceaseless activity to fulfill our randomly awakening desires between involuntary birth and mostly involuntary death? We keep making efforts to prolong our life or even to live “forever.” But what is the point of we do not know why we live, what our purpose is, and why we are called “human beings” compared to other animals?

Do we want to live longer so we can look into the mirror every morning while brushing our teeth, wondering what the difference is between the day before and the day after?

Moreover — and this is a notion we have been fighting with from the very beginning — we instinctively feel that our existence is not our own “creation.” We were given life by someone or something, we are born out of the Natural system as some source gave us life, and even during life, we depend on the Natural system or the forces acting in it.

We do not know what to make of this relationship to that source, the system, or the forces that gave us life and still nurture and keep us alive through the umbilical cord.

Modern humans would love to sever this connection; we would love to prove that we are independent and can stand on our own feet and can recreate everything Nature ever created, even creating life on our own.

But we can’t.

Thus the simple survival instinct that drives us 100% in our lives is not enough.

The survival instinct in itself does not make us human beings. And we can see today, especially in modern Western society, that this blind and ceaseless activity to chase and fulfill desires without any overall purpose or goal makes us emptier, and more depressed day after day to such an extent that we actually want to seld-destruct as we can’t live this aimless and inhumane life any longer, it pains us since inside we have another ability, huge yearning to become Human and find our why we live which desire we are not cultivating or fulfilling.

The time has come to become Human beings, otherwise, we will commit collective suicide. We need to search and find out our purpose in life, and we need to recognize and correct our relationship to the system and forces that gave us life and our Human purpose.