Man is not a Social Animal

It is an old saying - Man is a social animal. Really? I don't think any animal is really as social as we would like to believe. Society is a need, not a choice. Man needs society -- it is a need for him to be social but he really doesn't want to be.

Let's start with animals from bottom of the food chain. Ants are social. They have huge operations -- there is a queen and they collect food together, build homes together, help each other, etc. But this is all because a single ant wouldn't survive on its own. They need to be social. Let's use the example of a more complex animal like deer. They travel in herds because that is 'safe' for them. If they are left out they may get attacked by a predator. Lions and tigers are pretty secure in their strengths so they live in nuclear families and tend not to be very social.
Now let's turn to humans. When a human is poor and helpless, he likes the support of other people as a safety net. He is also not strong enough to think on his own, so society takes over -- religion and the mob around him controls him. So he is always surrounded by huge families and links like religion and union and the herd mentality is strong. There is no other way to go. If you are lucky enough to be rich and powerful, then you accept society on your own terms. Now you are becoming a lion and not an ant, and hence you start looking to get away from people -- find a bigger and bigger and emptier house on a higher and higher hill. So once the same poor person living in huge joint families with a huge set of friends turning to religion and living within social norms, gets the freedom by way of money and power, suddenly, the same 'social' human is no more so. The joint families start breaking into nuclear ones and further more. What society calls 'love' most of the time is only tested then, because most of the time, it is a compulsion and a need which keeps people in a herd like community, family etc. Minorities, for example, always seem to be more close knit, because of their need to feel protected.
When he can buy safety, security, health, and food, man suddenly stops being that social. He still needs to see his kind, but only on his terms. He has to do some give and take with his 'equals' and hence he mingles once in a while. Now give him a Facebook, twitter, phone, texting, and now he wants to socialize even less as he gets his fill keeping the distance so he can 'invoke' the society at his own will by click of a button.  

My point is - No living creature is social, they are stuck in it together. Next time when you lament how joint family and 'values' have decreased, how loved ones change, and brothers fight, just put this simple formula to test. Was it that the inter-dependence  was removed? It is all because the 'need' is gone, and the essential nature of human, that of living on his own terms comes to the fore. When poor societies find independence and freedom, it is called change of culture, and westernization. But what merely is that? it is just manifestation of 'real' nature of a creature.

The Rich and Pampered 'struggle and deserve'

Struggle and Deserve have no meaning and at best is used for self serving goals by people who live in the cocoon of their own made up world.

I am aware in some context these words do have a meaning, but the context I am talking is the one which they are most used for and that has no meaning. Let's take one at a time.

Deserve - What does it really mean? unless you believe in some kind of universal laws applying uniformly to everything in the universe, there is nothing called deserve. Dictionary meaning says - to be worthy of, to be qualified for. The problem is that being worthy of something or being qualified for something doesn't mean you deserve it, that just means... you may deserve it if everything else falls in place. And everything else means... everything else in universe which has nothing to do with what you are after, but affects every process and mechanism which makes the process happen for that 'what' you are after.

Deserve at best is a word used by a 5-9 year old kid who doesn't understand the world's complex network and intertwined nature of everything and in the simple world where Dad and Mom are the giver and the kid is the taker, it is simply matter of honoring a commitment. Dad said you will be given a chocolate if you read a book and once you are done, you 'deserve' the chocolate. Now that was long time ago, now in real independent life of yours it is not Dad it may be the boss (who is really not the boss, as he has many bosses and compulsions) and your work is not like reading a book, but that work's quantification itself depends on host of stuff which can easily dissolve into inconsequential stuff which can't be quantified. So now everything becomes fluid and confusing. So where does deserve go? There is nothing you deserve, if you get something that was just a matter of chance when everything aligned themselves to what you were aiming for. So you can call it divine intervention that you got it rather than describing it as you deserved something. Only thing needed for you to deserve something is you 'wanting' and in your own way you think you worked for it. So your want has become your 'deserve'!.

Let's for a moment think the kindergarten stuff that the world is as simple as the 5 yr old's chocolate episode above. So, when you work hard you deserve promotion, when you study hard you better get grade A. When you practice your art well you deserve to have a flawless performance... etc... Then how do you explain away everyone else directly and indirectly associated to the same event you are associated with? What if someone else is working for the same thing as hard? someone else found everything falling in place around him the way they needed though they didn't even work for it? It can keep going, so unless world becomes an exercise in making sense for only your own mind and you become the center of universe there really is nothing called Deserve. You Deserve nothing, zit, nada. So unless you are so rich and pampered (like all 5-9 yr old kids are) that the world around you makes you believe the world is some simple software program and works depending only on 'you and your efforts and needs' you won't use 'deserve' for yourself for anything. If you deserve 'something' then put it to test for random individuals. Does a kid blown by a bomb in war torn areas deserve it? A person who got away with murder and a big heist deserve it? a person who works 14 hours a day to get one meal a day - deserve it? A rich person who worked hard to be rich finds himself still sad - does he deserve it? Deserve is a word only used to describe an outcome not effort. If outcome is favorable you mollycoddle yourself and create a fake struggle before the 'deserved' ending.

Let's come to Struggle. It is in the same vein I talk about struggle as 'deserve'. This is a word only used by pampered out of touch celebrities. Struggle generally is referred to past life when you had less means. As if at that time you were not breathing and living like a normal human. During my struggling days.... this can be used for your college days or days you started a job, or were looking for a job etc. Once you get fatter and wealthier suddenly those days become struggle. But those days were perfectly regular as far as life in concerned. You were happy and sad and basically living just the way you are doing now. Struggle is always used in the past, but when you were living it, it was not struggle it was life. When an artist was struggling he was one of millions who were living the same life, now that he/she has earned some fame and wealth then the same life which is still being lived by millions became struggle for him (in the past) but if you ask the ones who are still living that life, that is just a life not a struggle to them.

It can be argued that the words don't need to make sense in a global way as an individual you still think you deserve few things even if it makes no sense in relation to the entire world and you still want to tag a few passages of your past as struggle. Fair enough but these are negative views and hamper your growth as an individual and stall you in the path of philosophical discourse you are having with yourself.

My point is - If you find yourself using words like 'deserve' and 'struggle' for yourself, it is a clear sign you are living in your own la-la land and being an annoying presence. I don't say you always need to live acknowledging harsh realities of world, but problem with using these words is that they will give you fleeting happiness in exchange of frustration of a lifetime. Your life will become a struggle, and you deserve it :).