Centre for Contemplative Learning and Research
Life is born and it dies. Genes, with a blueprint of the body-mind of all life, programs life to save itself from dying as long as possible.
Life eats life. Therefore saving itself from predators is programmed automatically in the body-mind of all forms of life from single-celled bacteria to human beings with a cellular population of 37.2 trillion cells. The emotion of fear thus is an existential necessity.
Survival implies sustenance and procreation to keep the species going. Survival, sustenance, and procreation, thus are fundamental drives built into all forms of life.
A faculty to sense and act is essential for survival in nature. Sustenance and procreation activities create physical sensations which are either pleasant or unpleasant. This gives rise to emotions of likes and dislikes. In time, the tendency to repeat the pleasant likes gives rise to desires, habits, compulsions, and addictions. The tendency to avoid the unpleasant creates compulsions of aversions, hatred, and bigotry. Fear of not getting pleasant likes and getting unpleasant dislikes adds anxiety and worry to the mix of emotions. All this happens naturally and automatically.
The evolution of the ability to see and identify others of the same species leads to the development of herd identity in animals. Herd identity is a logic of safety of survival in numbers. Simple herd identity of look-alikes morphs into complicated ego identity in humans with the addition of faith, race, caste, creed, gender, gender orientation, etc.
Life then is driven primarily by the emotions of fear, sensory likes, dislikes, and ego identity. These emotions do not even let us pursue our own good. An immediate sense of gratification becomes paramount. The long-term personal and common good and purposefulness get sacrificed on the altar of short-term sense gratification. Human life then becomes a life of momentary pleasures and perpetual suffering from stress and disease.