An observation I have made is that many people become awfully attached to symbols representing things they like or are committed to. Our attachments give symbols a do or die power, a kill or be killed significance. Symbols are the cultural artifacts that drive fans and societies to behave as a group. Our important symbols become Significant Points Of Reference in our lives.
Sometimes symbols represent a truth and at other times they represent an ideal. What are the ideals that we form attachments to? What do we value as a group, as a society? If you have worked through the daily meditations up to this point you’ve developed more awareness of your own feelings and emotions. The previous exercises have prepared you to examine your own behavior and the behavior of ever increasing larger societies. In today’s meditation it may be interesting to observe, what symbols do you find important? What symbols elicit and emotional reaction?
Are your favorite symbols really that important to your happiness? I think I’ll first take a look at spectator sports. Sporting teams are mainly symbolic for most people. For some people sports is a business, but for the majority of fans sporting teams aren’t too important, except? The exception is that sporting teams are symbols for things we are committed to. People get quite emotional about their favorite team, even violent. Why do people want to harm others over a game that was most likely developed for children?
There are economic incentives for organizations to foster these primitive emotions. If a game can be organized in a way to harnesses Fanatic fans then great financial rewards can be had for a few. However, cultivating these primitive emotions, in the long run, is probably not in the best interest of humanity.
Symbols can be enriching while nurturing the soul. Art is the realm of symbols, and so too are the rituals and customs of a society. Many ritualized behaviors have a social function that has evolved into a ritual that now only stands for something that once had a more practical significance. The criteria as to whether a symbol is nurturing or harmful to humanity is the degree that people are willing to harm others for the sake of the symbol.
Forming deep attachment to symbols give humans a competitive advantage over others. Our attachment to symbols serves society so well that this trait is likely to be with us for a very long time. The traits that promote unsustainable attachments to symbols is highly desired by individual societies. The competitive advantage of symbol attachment and especially those who are the bearers of the symbol tend to be desirable to females. When females select mates with this trait the trait is strengthened in the gene pool. Females are now the ones who will ultimately decide what human behavior should look like.
Wishing you the best in dogs and in life,
Andrew Ledford