Existential Book Club discussion

Throughout history, human behavior has been shaped by two primal forces:
the instinct to survive and the instinct to reproduce.
Every species on earth follows these impulses with astonishing consistency.

Except us.

Humans are the only creatures capable of ignoring, postponing, or even rewriting their instincts.
We resist survival for the sake of meaning.
We delay reproduction in pursuit of identity, ambition, or self-expression.
We willingly walk into emotional storms, even when instinct tells us to seek shelter.

So a question arises:

If pre-human evolution was shaped by instinct,
what shapes human evolution now?

— Are we evolving toward beings who survive through meaning rather than biology?
— Are we becoming creatures defined not by instinct, but by consciousness, story, and choice?
— Or are we simply drifting away from our natural design, with no clear direction?

And how does this affect the way we love?
Do we project storms from our inner oceans onto one another?
Do we rewrite instinct in the name of freedom, or does freedom sometimes drown us?

I would love to hear your thoughts.
Where do you believe humanity is heading — biologically, emotionally, and existentially?

— Raphaël Zéla

Raphaël wrote: "Throughout history, human behavior has been shaped by two primal forces:
the instinct to survive and the instinct to reproduce.
Every species on earth follows these impulses with astonishing consis..."

Hi Raphael,

Thank you for starting yet another fascinating discussion! :)
I wonder if humanity is "self regulating", what do you think? The majority of us does uphold the instincts you are referring too, so we are taking our genes forward that way.

As for those people who do not, it might be tempting to label them as an "evolutionary standstill" but somehow I feel it might be incorrect. For example, many great minds ( composers, writers, other artists) have nourished human souls for CENTURIES, which is not achieved simply by "survival and procreation" of some other, more ordinary minds.

So is the evolutionary direction- " most of human genes survive the basic biological way", and " some human genes survive in an innovative spiritual way", via affecting genetic expression of billions of people via beauty of their work??

And by the way, the related question might be- where does nature mean for human evolution to end up? Us being able to populate the Milky way?
Most of biologists seem to think that evolution has " no mind and no direction, its perfectly random and its all down to natural selection".

However the very same biologists also say that " natural selection favours progression of intellect", and we see the evidence of the latter all around us...

Thank you in advance for helping me to work it all out !

:))

Jasmine

Hi Jasmine,

What you said resonates beautifully — not only because it echoes that ancient wisdom “what you are seeking is seeking you,” but because it reveals something profound about the act of reading itself.

Books, much like people, arrive in our lives with a certain timing.
Not when we want them — but when we are finally capable of hearing what they have to say.

Perhaps this is why literature often feels less like entertainment and more like destiny’s quiet signature in our daily lives.

A story does not knock on the door of the mind;
it slips into the unguarded room of the heart.
It knows the version of us that is ripening beneath the surface —
the version we haven’t yet introduced to ourselves.

And maybe this is why the “right” book never really comes too early or too late.
It comes at the exact moment when its words can reshape something in us:
a fear, a question, a memory, a longing.

So yes — the book finds us.
But only because, in some silent way, we have been calling it all along.

Warm regards,
— Raphaël Zéla