Our ancient ancestral hominids did not contemplate copulating, breeding or feeding just as Ginger does not contemplate these activities. Our ancient ancestral hominids, like Ginger, simply participated in these activities when motivated to do so by their biological and neurological triggers. This provides a stark contrast to modern human endeavors.
Vasectomies for modern human males and the tying of the fallopian tubes of females serve as a permanent form of contraception. There are many other forms of contraception that focus on interrupting the female breeding process. Modern male and female humans can decide to engage in sexual activity including copulation while preventing the birth of an offspring. Modern humans can contemplate whether to have offspring or simply engage in sexual activity but block the reproductive aspect of copulation. This was not the case for our ancient ancestral hominids.
Another indicator of the stark contrast between our ancient ancestral hominids and modern humans regarding conscious thinking and breeding is our awareness and the public discourse regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. The public discourse revolving around LGBTQ+ rights and realities are extremely new in the conscious thinking of human beings. This sharp contrast regarding breeding delineates our first step in our reflection concerning the mating issues of modern humans.
The strong contrast between modern humans and our ancient hominid ancestors’ ability to make choices about breeding is a critical aspect in understanding love, the love that approaches agápē love. Having more known choices requires more thought before choosing the action taken. I make the distinction between “known choices” as opposed to “available choices” because awareness is necessary to a real choice. If the individual is not aware of a choice then, for that individual, the choice is not real, because that individual is unaware that the choice really exists. In order to choose, the individual must be aware of the choices available.
Begin with reality. An offspring is born into a reality that preexists his or her personal reality which is his or herself emerging into that preexisting reality (the reality of the world into which that emergence occurred). Perception is the taking in of the stimulus present in the environment. Awareness is attending to that stimulus. The baby sitting in a highchair repeatedly dropping an object onto the floor after others have retrieved that object is perceiving all of the action revolving around the dropping of that object. In my understanding, this baby is perceiving the effects of gravity. This baby may also perceive the reactions of others to the object dropped and to the baby as well. How the baby interprets all of these individual awarenesses forms his or her consciousness of the event. Consider the hypothetical situation of two such babies sitting in highchairs and dropping an object to the floor. No one responds to the object on the floor. One baby cries. The other merely looks down at the object on the floor. The offsprings’ reactions are different which would lead me to interpret that the two babies perceive the event differently and thus react differently. The difference in their respective perceptions may be different due to differences in their awareness of stimuli in the environment in which the event occurred. This hypothetical serves only to demonstrate the relationship and distinction between reality, perception and awareness. Perception and awareness are requisite for learning. Learning that has been institutionalized into mores and/or traditions or customs are human conventions like eating eggs for breakfast but not eating eggs for dinner. In this hypothetical, these babies could be interpreted as learning about gravity. The babies could also be learning about their parents’ attitude toward themselves.
Learning is fundamental to developing a condition of agápē love. Just as the modern adult human has learned more than the newborn human offspring knows, so too has the modern human learned more than our ancient ancestral hominid. In this respect, humans have learned a great amount regarding biology and anatomy and have learned how to treat our own bodies to gain control over illnesses and injuries. Modern human life resides upon the collective learning that ultimately has facilitated our increased control over our own lives, but this “progress” may have also contributed to our increased hubris.
We, modern humans, have a great many more choices than our ancient ancestral hominids. What the individual chooses, how the choice is made, and whether that individual chooses consciously at all is a concern of this reflection.
Érōs is the manifestation of the natural drive to breed offspring. Colloquially, érōs is lust. Speaking as a male, it is my belief that males are naturally configured to breed as much as possible. I cannot speak for the female perspective on this matter. I have not the experiential framework upon which to base a plausible assertion. Philía is the emotional base of comradeship and friendship not dominated by sexual affections but by such bonds as loyalty, trust, dependency, and reliability etc.. Philía is not about the natural command to breed but moves relationships past the need to breed toward more of a social understanding of improved survival of the individual when that individual bonds with another or several others from a perceived mutual interest.
The natural command to breed (érōs) is not dependent upon philía but the survival of the hominid offspring is improved if érōs is interwoven with philía. To illustrate, consider polar bears. Unfortunately polar bears may become extinct due to climate change and the rapid melting of polar ice which is negatively altering the habitat of polar bears at a significant level. Years ago, when the polar bear habitat was sound, the male polar bear did not bond with the female. Copulation was and is the only interest of the male. Caring for the offspring was left to the female. If the female suffered an unfortunate accident or otherwise was rendered unable to fend for her offspring then, more than likely, the offspring would perish. In stark contrast, an extended family unit of modern humans make arrangements to care for children if their parents are unfortunately killed in an automobile accident. An uncle or an aunt or some other individual bonded to that nuclear family takes in the surviving offspring. Social relationships fitting the notion of philía extend the probability of the species’ longevity.
With all of this in mind, a brief sub-summary might be beneficial. Survival seems to dictate that a given species has a natural mechanism to motivate individuals of that species to want to breed offspring. This desire to breed is colloquially understood as lust. While lust (érōs) may drive breeding, érōs infused with philía improves the survival rate of the offspring produced thereby improving the longevity of the species. Our ancient ancestral hominids may have begun their bipedal journey from their animalistic character toward their eventual evolution into modern humans as lust-driven individuals, but as they began to infuse their breeding practices with increased philía, their character began to shift toward more of a humanistic than an animalistic nature which is more reactionary to biological and neurological commands unchecked by conscious considerations. How far does philía move hominid character from its animalistic origins? Is érōs infused with philía when we, the English speaking humans, speak of love?
Remember, we, English speaking humans constantly say we love ice cream or we love it when a plan comes together. Given those types of usage for the word “love”, érōs infused with philía might be more than what love means when used in such sentences like, “I love ice cream.” Future investigation and reflection is required.
To assist our reflection at this point, juxtapose the mating behavior of polar bears and modern human divorce practices. A study conducted by Dr. Ian Stirling in 1973 provides relevant insight here. ** Polar Bears are huge mammals living in an extremely harsh environment. Males are significantly larger than females and even though females can also be very aggressive, males outsize them. Females have a scent gland in their paws which allows the males to pick up their trails. Once the male finds a promising trail and catches up to a suitable female, the process of mating begins. At first, the female is very cautious of the approaching male and must assure herself that this male means no harm. Males have been known to eat the cubs of females that they have encountered. Needless to say, females with cubs tend to avoid males. There is much more about the breeding and mating practices, but I am interested in one point in particular.
** https://polarbearsinternational.org/news/article-research/the-amazing-breeding-behavior-of-polar-bears/)
Once the pair of bears have overcome their defensiveness of each other and reduced aggressiveness in favor of mating, they continue with the mating particulars until copulation has occurred. The pair will spend some time together in proximity and may occasionally touch. However, a couple of days after mating, each walks away in a different direction leaving the female to attend to any offspring produced by their encounter. For the sake of facilitating this loose comparison, I liken this walking in different directions as being similar to a divorce in modern humans who married, had offspring and then decided to each go their separate ways.
Polar bears do not appear to have laced érōs with any noticeable amount of philía, whereas modern humans who have divorced apparently have some degree of philía woven around any érōs that first moved the couple to merge into a small family group. Having been through a divorce and entered into my second marriage, I am not going to speculate on what other men might internally experience having been through similar circumstances. My brother is in his third marriage. Many marriages have moved through divorce proceedings. Many children have had to contend with parents parting their ways. I am more knowledgeable of my internal responses stimulated by separating, divorcing and forging a different path from my previous wife. So, in taking Emerson’s proclamation about believing “what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,” I intend to focus first on self-revelation and struggle to be as honest as I possibly can instead of cowering in hypotheticals or fabricating fictional characters as representations of my experience. As such I must state that I never meant to, nor do I mean to disrespect any of the females with whom I have shared my life no matter how brief or how long the experience lasted. Additionally, any weakness in character that others may perceive accurately or inaccurately resides in me. None should be attached to the women who have honored me with the sharing of that part of their lives which we shared. All of us must grow into mature adults. The process of growing up is a process of learning how to live our lives better. Learning is to become informed, to be transformed into a new, better form of ourselves as complex, dynamic living beings destined to become less naive and more understanding. The alternative is to be frozen in our ways with a static worldview unresponsive to new perceptions and oblivious to self-reflection. Improvement is about self-change.
At seven years of age, I was certainly not the educated, mature adult male that I am now as I sit on my deathbed. No male is. Nor do females emerge as fully functioning adult females. At seven I was definitely aware that girls were not boys. Society has numerous conventions that reinforce the differences and these conventions begin at birth — pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Being young and not being told exactly what evoked this difference in treatment, I became increasingly curious as to what exactly that difference might be. This curiosity has continued and has grown into a more mature understanding that physical differences are quite important but that the depth of the reality between femininity and masculinity is far more immense than what the eye can see. While biological differences are significant (women have babies; men do not), the biology was only the obvious distinction and those obvious distinctions were still hidden from sight as I entered the wondrous, chaotic mysteries of my destined bout with puberty and the aftermath of contending with my male sexuality stimulated by Nature’s command to engage in procreating the human species.