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EMPATHY WITH ANIMALS
Broadband Sensing

Chapter 9 :
HUMAN IDENTITY
and its CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Whereas Chapters 2 and 3 were personal experiences which i attempted to explain rationally; Chapters 8 and 9 may be considered as hypotheses.

Chapter 9 may be the consequences of experiencing life in the broadband way. I am still developing these ideas. The intelligent reader will realise, that i too realise it is only one perspective. I would like, i need, discussion with other people who have distinct perspectives.

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The smugness of the super rich, and proud people with admirable egos, compared to the millions of people without homes, food and warmth, deserves another essay. This essay is written for and about Mr. and Ms. Normal in the developed world.
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Animal identity is based on their inner body feeling, and their relationship with and place in the world, as perceived by both the broadband and focussed use of their senses. In addition they identify with their territory, and have and give mutual confirmation within their social group.

THE FIRST GREAT STEP
Humans had all that animals have, and then we started developing our abilities with creative thinking. And from the first ruminations on the meaning of the moon and a flash of lightning, till ''why am I?'', we developed beliefs.

When we found gods to believe in, the relationship between individuals, groups, and the whole universe became secure or at least negotiable. This was the first great step away from our animal heritage. Since humans developed beliefs, they became the central priority for our sense of reality, security and identity.

CULTURAL IDENTITY
Human cultures passed ideas and customs down through thousands of generations. For a couple of million years, up to a hundred years ago, - even though humans were often hungry and cold – we lived with a social consensus of dress codes, language, ideas, beliefs and opinions.

Our sense of belonging and identity was found within our social group. The communal identity within our group, with each other and in relation to a big picture of the world, was confirmed by each other.

Foreigners had foreign customs and - if we agreed or not – the comparison gave us added confirmation of our groups' special identity.

And it didn't really matter much if we all believed we were living on the back of the Great Turtle, or, the stars were the children of the sun and the moon, - because for our sense of identity and security, the confirmation of the tribe was far more important than the truth.

EXPONENTIAL
This word is on everyone's lips to describe what we see in the world today. Since the first mammals evolved 180 million years ago, everything started developing exponentially. Especially after humans first appeared around 3 million years ago.

Since civilisation began 12,000 years ago, we have learnt to handle copper, bronze and steel; thinking, learning, understanding, writing and education. It seems unnecessary to describe all the developments, i include an anthropological timeline in Appendix D for those who know nothing about it.

Much changed since 1900 with industrialisation, scientific and medical developments, the vote, social care for the poor, education, freedom of thought, cars, planes, radios, television. And, gradually a multiplicity of problems have developed from plastics, planes, population and pollution.

The ancient spoked wheel deserves special mention. It remained in the same form for almost 4,000 years, until the development of trains around 1800, and then bicycles, cars and busses. So the wheels always go faster, and travel always gets easier, cheaper and quicker for the exponentially increasing poplution, resulting in a cultural meltdown and an ever expanding multiplicity of contrasting beliefs and opinions.

Our sense of identity through our territory and the confirmation of our geographical social group, is largely lost. Our cultural identity has destabilised. And we have become increasingly and exclusively identitified with our own individual ideas, opinions and beliefs.

This all leads to a very worrying situation, depressing, and normally avoided in polite conversations ... i wouldn't mention it, except that i think the first step and most basic part of the answer is obvious and easy to do. But first, we have to get deeper into the big depressing picture.

CULTURAL IDENTITY CRISIS
Since the middle ages, a cultural-social identity crisis started developing. Around the 1900s more and more people rejected their cultures traditional common beliefs, and more and more people have developed more and more individual ideas and opinions. We understand life with new blends and mixes of psychology and politics, spiritual ideas and philosophies, new forms of the Turtle, magic spirit bodies, and a complexity of wonderful new theories on human suffering.

Today there is absolutely no consensus of opinion about who we are or our place in the world and purpose in life. And we all see 'the present chaos' differently – and that's the point : we all have our own beliefs and opinions.

And the social confirmation of our beliefs was always far more important than whether they were true or not, even when we all believed in the Great Turtle.

I'd love to sidetrack and say: telling the truth is the only real way to believe in yourself, but it's not, it's having the confirmation of those around you, it always was.

CONFIRMATION
And so, now there's a new exponential vicous circle going on with confirmation. We all want confirmation (lit: with belief). Call it trust, loyalty, love, someone being there for us. We want someone to believe in and we want people to believe in us.

But the increase of contrasting ideas and opinions in our environment, and the need for self confirmation, are in opposition. There simply isn't enough mutual confirmation to go around ... And so, the need to confirm our ideas and opinions escalates exponentially, with everything else.

Any trace of the original animal sense of belonging is long gone; and now we have even lost the mutual support of our tribe. Our beliefs are insecure in a way no humans in any previous culture, have ever experienced, or even imagined, - and so we all still feel very insecure.

And living to confirm and always reconfirm our beliefs, is only one side of the picture, on the other, we're scared of being 'disconfirmed', disbelieved. So we daydream about how we were right or will be right in the future.

Our modern political liberal thinking to socially integrate and contain the diversity of beliefs, - rather than infallible rulers forcing a consensus of ideas, - is a great step for civilisation. But, respect for someone else's beliefs is only a shadow of the mutual confirmation of a group, and liberal attitudes inevitably only create even more diversity of ideas.

SOCIAL CHAOS IS PREPROGRAMMED
Since 2,000 we find comfirmation increasingly with online social groups, which mirror our opinions and ideas with appropriate one-sided news reports. In the free world many newspapers and politicians have to say what the people want to hear, because the confirmation of ideas and opinions, the sense of security in our beliefs, is more relevant and vital than the truth. And my point is, this was always so, even when we believed the Sun and Moon gods were chasing each other.

If it wasn't the online social groups and politicians – it would be something else ... and we can expect this situation because as a race we have lost the mutual support of our tribe; our social group is insecure. All we have left to identify with, is our individual ideas and opinions ... and they are exponentially insecure.

IT'S ALL ABOUT FOCUSSING, WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THE BALANCE
As a race we have generally become more and more creative with our abstract thinking. We have developed ideas on individual freedom of thought, with an emphasis on thinking for yourself, expressing yourself and believing in yourself. All good, but where is the balance?

From a broadband perspective, it's all about focussing: entertainment, God, the turtle, and the ego are all only focal points. We have forgotten the balance.

We learn to connect words and symbols and to develop our focussing abilities and abstract thought at an increasingly young age. And at the same time we are learning to neglect our broadband abilities, at an increasingly early age. Modern man has lost and we are ignoring, part of how we always sensed the world around us, lived and managed to survive over millions of years.

We seldom enjoy the spontaneous broadband experience of a landscape, or simply 'messing about on the river'. And even if we do have the experience, we don't recognise how it happened. We just start thinking, focussing abstractly on the memory of that landscape or river.

Apart from maybe the angler, or the country yokel surrounded by hilltops and panaromas - both who don't know what they are doing, because it's so normal and seems like nothing special ... and it is nothing special, it's very natural, - but apart for them, we just don't go broadband anymore.

WORK IDENTITY and SPECIALISATION
Over hundreds of thousands of years there has been a steady increase in job-specialisation. Quite recently since civilisation, humans started focussing on individual trades, and found identity in their work as soapmakers, ropemakers, brickmakers, bookbinders and glass blowers. But to keep growing exponentially we needed to keep repeating everything in smaller and smaller specialised parts. Always focussing on smaller bits.

Now with industrialisation and mass production, each worker provides separate specialised bits of each product. Even the local greengrocer now packs 1,000 frozen pea packets a day, and his wife sells them in the supermarket.

Our new 'mass individuality', has become increasingly defined by what we do in our 'free time'.

OUR BALANCE FOR WORK – ENJOYMENT - THE PASSIVE MODE
To balance out all the focussing, doing and learning, humans have developed an amazingly creative collection of free time activities in the 'passive' mode. Listening to and playing music, storytellers and travelling circuses, television and sports, tasting wine, being massaged and meditation.

The passive mode or dozing is common among animals. But our passive mode is usually when we focus on someone else who is focussed on entertaining us.

We encourage self expression and creativity with arts, dance, sports and music. And all of this is good. Our cultural achievements in creativity and entertainment are magnificient. But it's all to do with focussing. From a broadband perspective, the way we try and balance our 'doing-focussing-working time' with our 'free time' is ironical.

Animals don't balance their focussing activities with more focussing on being creative or having fun. I've nothing against fun. It's a wonderful human invention. But focussing on something which is fun or creative, is not a realistic balance for focussing on work.

THE NAVIGATOR'S TRIANGULATION POINTS
We have completely neglected our basic animal abilities and how other animals have been successful and managed to survive. There are so few people who know how their body smells, tastes and feels from the inside - and that dimension of our sense of reality and identity.

And especially from the point of view of this book, as a culture, no-one seems to recognise the possibility and potential of going broadband. We never experience how life feels when using this inborn human ability.

Broadband sensing and our internal body sense reduce the need for confirmation of our beliefs, because they give us another dimension to our sense of being in the world. They are another way to know ourselves, feel real and feel 'i exist'. They give us balance and like a navigator's triangulation points, it establishes a realistic relationship with the world inside and the world outside.

Broadband sensing is part of what we are, of our potential as humans ... or could be if only we used it.

From my perspective, as individuals we can't expect to develop any realistic and reliable sense of balance, without going broadband for a minute or so every few hours. ... And any modern culture can't expect to survive, without at least and firstly, recognising that the senses can be used in this way.

People of all cultures have access to this elementary experience, it's in the human make up. It's not a new religion, it's the original ancient way of being. It's a common denominator among all people of all cultures.

Thieves, liars, and sinners can do it, ... and i wonder what effect it would have? murderers, materialistic millionaires and anti social yobs could do it ... you don't need to be selfless and pure of heart, to start doing it. Over intellectual academics and stupid people ... politicians ... and i wonder what effect it could all have?

GREED and EGOISM
Our ideas on how we look, our self-image in the form of our physical appearance from the outside - has become central to our sense of identity. Yet mirrors were only generally available since the 1850s and now the kids are hooked on selfies. In the developed world, we have all our ancestors ever wanted, and wanted for their children. The deep-freeze is full, we've got central heating, hot water bottles, and houses of brick. And we are all very sure of our own opinions.

We're showing symptoms of vanity, greed, and conceit, but i DON'T believe that it's our selfish ego which is the cause. It is our cultural insecurity.

I repeat: any trace of the original animal sense of belonging is long gone; and now we have even lost the mutual support of our tribe. Our beliefs are insecure in a way no humans in any previous culture, have ever experienced, or even imagined, and so, we all still feel very insecure. ... And all we can do, and think of doing, is going after more focus points, with more 'I' as a focal point, because perceiving 'I' as a focal point is all we experience, and all we know how to feel.

We have developed a form of cultural over compensation with all our focussing activities: thinking, understanding, getting, doing, building, beliefs, ideas and opinions.

We have collectively developed, what has become a form of displacement activity. Displacement activity is when hens scratch and peck at nothing because they feel insecure, dogs and cats cleaning when they actually want feeding. Any habitual activity can be displaced. We are displacing with our focussing abilities. Everyone is doing it, even prophets and poets, it is cuturally confirmed and unquestioned.

THE PERFECT BLIND SPOT
The continual want for a focus point, an aim, a reason to live, something to want, to think in terms of focal points, is all we know how to do. We don't know how it is to be without a focus point. We've lost the balance, and from a broadband perspective we can't expect to feel whole without it.

There are many things we need to feel whole, like being truthful ... but being truthful is just more focussing. Do you see my point? The first step now, must be to relate to life using all our senses, with all their possibilities of perception, because at present we're simply not getting the whole picture because we're only using part of our sensory abilities.

Now, i realise all this is only my opinions and ideas, and i'm looking for confirmation, ... i'm a typical human.

The original use of this way of using the senses is completely redundant, but the side effects are that it opens up another dimension of an individuals relationship with the world, of feeling part of the whole.

We don't even know it's missing, it may be the perfect blind spot. If we get near to recognising it, we turn it into concepts which we are used to, we call it focussing on not focussing, we call it being actively-passive, we turn it into a paradox to think about, but there is no paradox, it's just common sense.

Animals have three modes of being: active, passive, and broadband. Humans have forgotten the broadband mode. If an individual recognises this and uses it – it is everything one could expect from a new perspective on life. It is another way of experiencing and feeling. And as any new perspective would, it opens new possibilities and potential.

No modern culture can afford to ignore the possibilities this opens up for securing our survival ... individually and as a creative modern culture ... such a valuable human resource cannot be ignored.

CONCLUSION
I'm suggesting these ideas should first be considered and recognised. Their validity tested by common sense and experience.

I may be wrong about some things in the empathy for animals section Chapters 4-7, (i am convinced by all of Chapters 1-3), but before anyone can be sure, i need a consensus of opinion from small children, when asked by their parents : where does your breath come and go? Where do smells go in your body? What can you taste in your body?

Such questions and interest would stimulate consciousness. They would encourage children to keep in touch with their inborn sense of reality, and it might open doors for us. It might only be a matter of a few years, till children could help us rediscover what it felt like to have a realistic balance in life.

Then i'm suggesting these ideas be educated and encouraged by parents and teachers from an early age, so that small children never forget this sense of awareness – AS A BALANCE for the emphasis on focussing and learning, - and the consequent emphasis on developing our free individual creativity, ideas and opinions, - with the consequent insatiable, almost addictive need to always confirm and reconfirm our beliefs in such a diverse culture.

Contact is welcome with anyone, but particularly parents with young children who could help develop a natural and practical way of questioning children, without them asking us for the answers.

Appendix E: (being developed March 22nd)
When does your child start covering his ears, and then maybe playing peek-a-boo with hearing?

2 years What do you see with your eyes closed? draw it.
2 years (?) (before a child learns anything about 'my beating heart') - where is the beating strongest?

I would love parents now to ask their two to ten-year-olds: "when you breathe, where does the breath go in your body?" They need to be asked lying down, standing, and after running.

Various games could be developed to stimulate the peripheral vision and distances, wavelengths and directions of sound and smell. Instead of asking a group of children to be silent, ask them : who can hear the first dog bark or pigeon cooing?

To Epilogue