Our symbol for love

Our symbol for love is not a word but a shape. The symbol is described as a "heart", but it looks nothing like the organ that pumps blood.  

A two-dimensional heart.
There are lots of ways to make a three-dimensional heart.
We are most attracted to the shape in which there are two rounded lobes near the center.

Animals respond to certain simplistic visual and auditory stimuli. Most male animals are attracted to the rear end of a female, and it may be because they are attracted to the basic shape of a rear end. Some baboons have a rear end that closely represents our favorite type of three-dimensional heart.
 
 

Even a female human, when bent over, will have this "heart" shape. Is it just a coincidence that humans represent love with a symbol that closely resembles a stylized butt?

Furthermore, we prefer to give the heart a pink or reddish color, just like a baboon's butt.

Have you read Desmond Morris's book, The Naked Ape? He points out that the narrow waist and rounded breasts in young women simulate a monkey's butt, and her protruding lips simulate a vagina. This would cause men to be attracted to the front side of a woman rather than her butt.

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Privacy allows us to hide our defects

We all have imperfections in our mind and body. Thousands of years ago there was nothing our ancestors could do to hide their imperfections, but today we hide a lot of them. We also have hair dyes, surgical procedures, braces for our teeth, and other technology to mask or counteract some of our defects. Some people go further and lie about their age, their family, and their history.

The privacy we provide ourselves with today is making it impossible for us to get to know one another to the same level of intimacy that our ancestors knew each other. As a result, a lot of people are forming friendships, business relationships, and marriages with people that they would not have gotten involved with if they had known each other more thoroughly. Privacy is allowing people to deceive one another, but nobody gains from this deception.

Humans reach adulthood by about the age of 18, and by then we should be close to making decisions on who our spouse will be. However, most people are wasting their youth and many of their adult years trying to meet and get to know other people. Everybody is suffering from the deception, lies, and privacy.

We could speed up the process of getting to know each other if we were allowed to ask one another some "personal" questions, but is considered "impolite" to do so. We are supposed to learn about other people as a side effect of talking about irrelevant issues. It would be more beneficial to us to teach children that it is impolite to lie, deceive, or withhold information about yourself to a potential spouse or friend.

The government could help us by maintaining a database that contains information about each of us, such as our school records, employment history, and credit history. And this database could contain whatever photos and videos our government has of us. Everybody would have free access to this database. However, most people would complain that this database "invades their privacy".

Throughout most of human history there was no secrecy; no privacy; no way for people to deceive one another or hide their unpleasant characteristics. The lack of privacy may seem terrible, but it is only seems terrible if you are ashamed of yourself and cannot accept what you really are.

However, if you are ashamed of yourself, you should seriously consider whether you benefit by deceiving people. You may fool somebody into becoming your friend or spouse, but when they find out what you really are, the relationship will become miserable. So what will you gain with your deception? If you and everybody else had been honest, you may have found somebody who was willing to accept you as you really are.

If we design society according to the people who are ashamed of themselves, we end up with a society similar to what we have today in which neurotic people try to deceive each other. We are not even certain who our government officials are, or who is in control of our police departments.

It isn't possible to design a society that pleases everybody. Society should be designed according to what we consider to be the healthy, happy humans. The people who are ashamed of themselves should be told to that they just have to deal with it. The rest of us should not have to live according to their mental disorders and paranoia.
 

Why were children warned about masturbating?

For thousands of years parents have tried to discourage their children from masturbating. Some parents would tell their children that if they masturbate, they will go blind, become mentally ill, or get sick. People today dismiss those remarks as "old wives tales", but what is an "old wives tale", and why would our ancestors create them if they were false?

Most of the old wives tales are better described as the "theories" of primitive people who misinterpreted the complex issues in their lives.

Thousands of years ago the lack of privacy meant that people often knew when other people masturbated. People noticed that some people masturbate more than others. They would have also noticed that the people who do it the most were also having the most problems with life; some seemed crazy; some were getting sick frequently; and some were going blind. Due to their lack of understanding of life, the people developed the theory that masturbation was causing them to have problems. They then warned their children not to do it.

The issue of excessive masturbation is similar to the issue of excessive cravings for sex, food, money, fame, television, and drugs. Specifically, people who are not in good mental health, or who are suffering from physical pains, are always looking for an activity that will take away their pain, or bring them some momentary pleasure.

Thousands of years ago a person who was suffering from a mental or physical disorder would have discovered that masturbation brings momentary pleasure into his miserable life. A normal person masturbates only when his sexual urges become strong, which is perhaps once every few weeks. However, these unhappy people were not masturbating because of their sexual urges. Rather, they were masturbating in order to force some momentary pleasure into their lives.

The same thing would happen with sex. The teenage boys who were suffering from mental or physical problems would be much more interested in having sex. Their desire for sex was not because they actually wanted sex. Rather, they wanted the momentary pleasure that the sex would bring them.

We see the exact same behavior today, except that today the unhappy people have more options. Today they can eat excessive amounts of food, take a variety of drugs or alcohol, watch television, play video games, and pursue fame.

Our primitive ancestors would assume that their troubled children became troubled because they masturbated too often, or because they had sex too early. Parents today are making the same silly assumptions, but today they assume that their troubled children became troubled because they watched too much television, or played too many video games, or were pushed by a drug dealer into using drugs.

When a person is in good mental and physical health, he doesn't need to pursue happiness because he is happy. The people who are pursuing happiness are showing signs that something is wrong with them. Unhappy people are like a rat who is forever pressing a switch to titillate its brain. The unhappy people are forever looking for ways to bring themselves and pleasure, or mask their pain.
 

What is happiness?

One of the reasons America was created was to allow people to "pursue happiness". How do we pursue happiness? Where is happiness?

The best way to understand happiness might be to consider a person thousands of year ago who was born with some physical problems, such as arthritis, allergies, heart palpitations, and digestive problems. Assume that this person survived to adulthood. He would be experiencing lots of pains, a runny nose, and other unpleasant sensations. He would notice that other people don't suffer from these problems. If he came to the conclusion that there was something that the other people did or ate that gave them good health, he might start pursuing good health. He might experiment by eating different items, or mimicking what he sees other people doing. However, no matter what he did, nothing would fix his problems. He might notice that fermented fruit helps him to mask some of the misery, and he might notice that sex or masturbation temporarily distracts him from his misery, but nothing ever fixes the problem.

A similar situation occurs with "happiness". If your brain is designed correctly, and if your body is controlling its blood chemistry correctly, you will be happy. Unfortunately, many people are born with mysterious disorders in their brain and/or body which creates what we refer to as unhappiness, anxiety, depression, anorexia, or paranoia. Because humans are arrogant, people who are born with problems will natually assume that they are the same as - or better than - everybody else. It will not occur to them that they are actually suffering from a serious mental and/or physical disorder.

The unhappy people will notice that they feel better at certain times, such as when they have sex, when they purchase items, when they eat, or when an audience applauds them. They may also notice that they feel better when they take certain types of drugs. Our natural arrogance will cause these people to assume that the reason they feel better when they do these particular activities is because those activities are a source of happiness.

In reality, an "abnormal" craving for food, sex, or other entertainment is a symptom that something is wrong with the person's mind and/or body.

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