Understanding.
It is something that is much too lacked these days. It is what makes us different from computers and the more primal of beasts. They are completely capable of recording down information in their appropriate slots, or following completely their instinctual desires. Humans, however, liken themselves to be at least somewhat higher than these crude beings. They may not look beastly, nor have any sort of physical defect that would provide evidence or make certain our judgment of them, but it is due to their mental capacities that we so think this way.
We have even gone so far as to already put of our league of intelligence completely. We do not ridicule them for their relatively measly constructions, and their living life for the sake of living perspective. No, instead we comment on their cuteness and their ability to do that which is relatively far below that which we can do. It’s like the way an adult treats a baby, except there’s no expectation of the baby ever to reach the adult’s mental capacity. Some might hope so, but the general consensus is that animals are indeed stupider than us. But ironically, we are missing the one thing that is separating us from them. It is our ability to learn from our mistakes and comprehend that which we have already learned. It is our ability to build upon that which has already been built. It is our ability to understand.
Do we truly, though, nowadays? Sure, we can remark that we understand something, but does the process of doing so really complete its journey through our mind, or does it flow out of our crevices into the abyss of ignorance and forgetfulness? But first, what is understanding? It is the comprehension of a concept, and being able to ensue the process of reasoning with it as well as changing our lives based on that information. Of course, we might not necessarily change our views of life and its meaning for every single article of knowledge that we understand.
There are some cases, however, especially in our modern lives, that require this implementation of the processed knowledge into our lives. An example that troubles me appears whenever I hear or read of a child, or even an adult, who acts maliciously for no reason at all. No matter if it was in retaliation to a prior event, or a result of a lack of sleep or sufficient sustenance, it has been already hammered into our heads the fact that being unvirtuous or violent has simply no positive effect to the community. You would just be chancing upon or contributing into a chain of resentment and unvirtuousity; you would cause the other member to inflict anger upon another, who then do that upon another, creating either or even both an ever increasing mass of depressed or violent people.
Even if your affected members later understood that the actions done in their past were just be stupid idiots, for the most part they will retain some ever hurting memory of it, either subconsciously or consciously. But it seems that they do not care. I had a short, direct, and possibly false (on the other party’s side) conversation with a child near my age in which he replied that he was mean just to be mean. He gave no reason for his being mean; he even admitted that he knew none. It was probably just the end-result of the endless chain of society’s problems as well as our more native traits, but that does not make it any less wrong or illogical. Blatantly, he had just admitted to not giving a single thought to the understanding of something that he had learned.
We also see examples like this everywhere, really. Smoking, taking drugs, prostitution, child labor, cutting hazardous corners in business, wars, etc. We know the code of morality that so exists within all of us. We have been taught that some actions are evil, and have proved to be horrendously destructive and not entirely worthwhile in the past. But we throw these articles of knowledge so that we may sink into that comfortable sink hole of the illusion of happiness through physical pleasure, ignorance, or the attainment of that which is material.
And that’s not to say that to step in once in a while is not good, it’s natural – though that’s really a moot point – and especially when it comes to the material, we cannot necessarily live without it. It helps provide a bit of enjoyment in our lives, I guess. But we always have to acknowledge and UNDERSTAND that it is still a sinkhole, and if we ever forget about it, we’ll drown in its grasp. To just know it is a sinkhole, and when to get out and back in, is not enough. It’s a repetitive cycle with no meaning at all. But to understand it is to search for the possibility, or reality, of another location where the happiness is pure and where there are no elusive hands waiting to drag you down. To understand it is to hope and reach to achieve the better and the more virtuous. To understand it, and therefore understand or try to understand everything else, we will be closer to all that is and all that we have ever searched for.
SMIC Perspectives 