The “chicken/egg” scenario between human nature and the environment that shapes us

Zsolt Hermann
2 min readSep 5, 2021

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Question from the Internet:

“Are we more of a product of our environments or our environments more a product of us?”

This is a very important question that relates very much to us right now. Many people would agree that we are the product of our environment, after all beyond our genetic inheritance, upbring and education it is the environment that shapes, modulates us day by day.

We receive our goals, inspirations, values, and the 24/7 brainwash from society, the environment we live in. And even if we go against the majority opinion of the environment, it is still the environment that defines who we are.

This is why wise people suggest that the only real free choice in life is choosing the environment that will form us like a human incubator.

Still, we have to find the right cause-and-effect relationship in order to know how we can change things — when we feel that changes are necessary.

Our environment, everything that surrounds us in the world is built and sustained by our inherently egocentric, self-serving, individualistic, and exploitative human nature. Thus at the moment, it does not matter what environment we build, what philosophy, ideology, ethical or moral codes, culture, or religion we choose as our foundations, each and every human environment will inevitably be and remain selfish, egotistic, and exploitative.

So in order to become able to build better environments, to build better human incubators that can produce better human beings we need to change our inherent nature, the internal software that drives us, since only improved, “upgraded” human beings can build a different environment for themselves.

This of course necessitates a different, specifically organized, and conducted human environment that can help us recognize our inherent nature and build a true desire for changing ourselves and which can also give us the tools and help for such self-changes, self-upgrade.

Usually, people are “lead” to such a unique environment with a special, purposeful, and practical method by becoming disillusioned from the general society, the environment they live in, and also lead by the irrepressible questions about the meaning, the purpose of life which our general society cannot answer, find solutions for.

In these unique environments, we can resolve the paradox, the “chicken/egg” scenario about human nature and the environment that shapes us, by learning to become the embryo in the incubator and the architects of the right incubator for others at the same time.

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Zsolt Hermann
Zsolt Hermann

Written by Zsolt Hermann

I am a Hungarian-born Orthopedic surgeon presently living in New Zealand, with a profound interest in how mutually integrated living systems work.

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