what exactly is human nature?

first off, i'd like to say this. there is no black and white for me really. just loads of gray areas about right or wrong/ good and evil. i think that what is good is defined by the 'winners' while the 'losers' are forever put in a bad light. i dunno, it just came to me one day that what if our perceptions of what is right and just are really just that: perceptions. i don't make sense but let me put it this way: what if say the Nazis won that war ages ago. wouldn't they say that they were the good guys who triumphed over the other people fighting a good thing?

with that said, let me answer the question.are all humans animals when it comes down to it? well, technically, we are animals. we're just a more evolved and complex life form. but we started from the apes remember? we may have changed a good deal, but one thing we have kept inside through all the generations is our survival instinct. be honest. who wants to die? remember the SAW movies? they were given choices: kill another/face pain or die. they chose the former. why?? because we usually put ourselves before others. it's survival of the fittest out there. it's like the hunger games, but the arena is much bigger, and the prize of winning is much more valuable.

we are all competitive as hell. who's smarter, more beautiful, fitter, things like that. if whatever we have is essential to our survival, we use it. we hone it to be a better tool for us. if something brings us down, it must be terminated. say i had a headache which dulls my thinking, i take aspirin. right?

on a more dramatic level, i'd say that yeah, i'd probably do something 'illegal' to survive. i think the justification of the act depends on the context of why you did it. like dom's example on stealing food if you can't afford it when you are extremely hungry. i mean, fuck, i'm starving to death! ethics/morals are not my biggest issue at the moment! or miss dianne's example about the kids being prostitutes so they can feed their family. their parents pushed them in that direction. they think it's right. they think it's relatively easy money. i have dealt with kids like them when i was nursing student. trust me, some of them think it's the right thing to do because they help with putting food on the table. the parents probably think along the same lines. because they are desperate. at least we have comforts they don't; that's why we think the acts are so repulsive. but what if we were stripped of our creature comforts? would we stoop to that level? you'd be thinking about living in the here and now, not wondering about consequences of actions i suppose.

yeah, sure, we have laws and all that. but what are they really? they're just made so those on top can stay on top. nobody follows the law here. c'mon. take a look around. even the enforcers themselves don't follow the law. they were made so that we can call ourselves civilized. we have a government, we have rules, we have structure/order. it's just a glittery facade that separates us from other species: we have 'laws' written down.

the girl in the story killed her father. i still stand by my view that the bastard deserved the bashing to the head. technically, his life is in the hands of the daughter anyways since she saved him from the soldiers. and he didn't even care about it! "waiting daw". so she did sort of have the right to do whatever she pleases with his life. i mean, killing him is a bit over, but a guess all the pain just built up. the father was always beating them up, and then she had to sell herself to free his sorry ass. all that trauma and psychological doodah is definitely gonna make you crack. she's 15! that's her way of getting rid of the problem. i think their family would do just well without the dad.

i mean, i'd kill if it meant survival for my family. my top priority (as always) is my mom. she's the one exception to my rule of "ako muna". she always comes first for me, no matter what. mama's girl. pft.