Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

Page 71

THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS AND PAIN
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ourselves but we develop unhappiness, neurotic tendencies, hypochondria, paranoia, lack of confidence and other ills that fatten the purses of psychiatrists. Kalam: How can we be happy? Acharya: The potentiality to do good is also the potentiality to do evil. What is needed is increased awareness and perception of the environment and increased ability to react accordingly. Kalam: We have impulses and propensities coded in our genes and in the limbic systems of our brains as the result of millions of years of evolution. We also possess a freedom, through imaginative choice, to enact these impulses and propensities in countless ways. So existentially we need a code of ethics by which to order our behaviour. Acharya: We are truly the changelings of possibility. Kalam: Let's assume that an organization to teach cultural adaptation is to be created. What should it be like? Acharya: It seems logical that such an organization must: 1) Factor anthropological history in industrialized
society. 2) Identify the emotional and physical problems of
people. 3) Seek out the available educational tools. 4) Point out the values of solving problems. 5) Disseminate this knowledge to the public. Kalam: The relish for pleasure must be accompanied by temperance and decency. Acharya: As human life continuously evolves and progresses, pain will also be proportional in the