Gewd
Macro reason for this post: I wonder all the time about what makes people so different in morals and attitudes. Why do some people want to help others, and some want to play hockey, be dicks, drink and act like a rude pig? Micro reason for this post: Just finished studying a bit and I saw a kid, who I know comes from a single parent/dysfunctional home, pour two drinks on himself and smash both cups on his face I was sitting here in this coffee shop thinking about what makes people good, nice, caring and giving humans. Just as I was deep in thought I saw my parents drive by and viola - answer. The way I see it, there is some biology involved because there is biology involved in every process ever. Biology students for the win. But thats not the reason why having parents makes you a good person. It all stems from parental pressure. Too much pressure can lead to cases of crazy people running around campus with automatic weapons after finally buckling under the pressure of parents forcing their circle child into the triangle hole. But not enough leads to the formation of individuals such as the formentioned face smasher. If, when he was young, the face smasher were trying to seek the approval of his parents and after applying a correct amount of effort he garnered that approval maybe he would have developed differently. There is a chain, I think, that develops into a larger and more far reaching unit as we grow. It starts out as a child trying to be good so your parents would approve of what you have been doing. For example getting your homework done and getting to bed on time. Next the chain grows to include your extended family, friends and other people that are close to you. These people form a picture of who you are based on more exterior aspects. Do you say please and thank you? Are you polite to people you know? People you don’t know? How do you do in school? Once we know that it feels rewarding to have people think well of us (from our parents giving us that “good for you” feeling when we are young) we want to make these other people think well of us, too. This desire is what gives us the drive to be polite, to study and to sometimes go out of our way to treat other people kindly. From this the chain grows to a much larger level as we develop into more responsible people. No we want the approval of people we don’t know. How lovely would it be to have a profound enough impact on a strangers life for them to approve of your existence? This may start on a school community level, maybe on a level with an even larger community but it soon gives way to the global community. If all the pieces have fallen into place, we will want to be good people not just for ourselves and our families, but rather for the entire human community. Some people even want to be good for those that won’t be on the planet for hundreds more years. (People who drive Earth raping vehicles, this does not include you) So, in brief, given that you have parents that keep you focused without crushing your soul chances are you will turn out to be a pretty good person. What starts as striving for your parents praise for pooping in the little potty and not your pants can lead to striving to stop global warming, create new technologies, create sustainable lifestyles and, in general, change the world. Not everyone has to want to change the world, they just have to think of people other than themselves and avoid smashing glasses on their face.
