Naturalism
I adore people very much and I'm sure that it's my downfall. I want to impress them and I want them to love me, which is the natural response to something you respect and love. We seek reciprocity and turn bitter when we don't receive it.
One of the great acknowledged virtues, however, is moderation -- moderation of pleasures that are in danger of becoming vicious. And the adoration of people is one of these. An excessive adoration of people is the perfect breeding ground for detrimental expectations, as mentioned before; you will expect to be adored back, but nowhere in the act of adoring people is this logically entailed, and so you have no true right to expect it. But you will expect it, because that's the natural instinct of man, to expect something in return.
A lot of people talk about training yourself to love people without the expectation of love in return, but I suspect this is unrealistic, so as an alternative combat to this vice of excessive anthropic adoration, I would suggest the following: to train yourself to divide your adoration amongst a plurality of things, or--more specifically--to love life in general. In lieu of adoring this one aspect of life, namely humans, adore all of nature and that which goes on within its sphere. Naturally a lot of this is human activity because our species so dominates the planet, but loving nature and human activity does not equate to just loving people. Human activity is different to people -- the adoration of people our society finds itself in is manifest in the adoration of celebrities and of our peers, encouraged by social networks and the internet in general. To move away from the adoration of people and personality, one can adore human activity -- one can marvel at our creations, our buildings, our festivals, our countries, our culture, literature, art, history, insight, philosophy, our compassion and other virtues. And in nature in general, we can appreciate animals and facts about them (did you know birds are technically classified as dinosaurs? Whenever you see a bird, you're watching a highly specialised form of dinosaur), the beauty of rivers and mountains and trees and stars.
My point is that, in the face of the death of religion and god, we find ourselves instinctively turning to each other and focusing all our adoration there, and while admirable in moderation, the excessive adoration of people and personalities becomes a vice. So, instead of humanism as a lifestyle, we should consider naturalism, by which I mean the loving of a plurality of things in nature, instead of the excessive loving and adoration of humanity.
One of the great acknowledged virtues, however, is moderation -- moderation of pleasures that are in danger of becoming vicious. And the adoration of people is one of these. An excessive adoration of people is the perfect breeding ground for detrimental expectations, as mentioned before; you will expect to be adored back, but nowhere in the act of adoring people is this logically entailed, and so you have no true right to expect it. But you will expect it, because that's the natural instinct of man, to expect something in return.
A lot of people talk about training yourself to love people without the expectation of love in return, but I suspect this is unrealistic, so as an alternative combat to this vice of excessive anthropic adoration, I would suggest the following: to train yourself to divide your adoration amongst a plurality of things, or--more specifically--to love life in general. In lieu of adoring this one aspect of life, namely humans, adore all of nature and that which goes on within its sphere. Naturally a lot of this is human activity because our species so dominates the planet, but loving nature and human activity does not equate to just loving people. Human activity is different to people -- the adoration of people our society finds itself in is manifest in the adoration of celebrities and of our peers, encouraged by social networks and the internet in general. To move away from the adoration of people and personality, one can adore human activity -- one can marvel at our creations, our buildings, our festivals, our countries, our culture, literature, art, history, insight, philosophy, our compassion and other virtues. And in nature in general, we can appreciate animals and facts about them (did you know birds are technically classified as dinosaurs? Whenever you see a bird, you're watching a highly specialised form of dinosaur), the beauty of rivers and mountains and trees and stars.
My point is that, in the face of the death of religion and god, we find ourselves instinctively turning to each other and focusing all our adoration there, and while admirable in moderation, the excessive adoration of people and personalities becomes a vice. So, instead of humanism as a lifestyle, we should consider naturalism, by which I mean the loving of a plurality of things in nature, instead of the excessive loving and adoration of humanity.
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