Of Human Nature and Good Habits: Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

By Prabhash Karan

In the human body, there’s always exists—a human inside! The book, Of Human Nature and Good Habits, reveals that human inside and promotes good personal habits and social skills. This book along with its four companion books—Nature Is My Teacher; Life, Living and Lifestyle; How to Win Nature and Enjoy Good Life and Health and Medical Care—constitutes a series that tells the nature-human connection and its implication in our daily life, in the related set of separate episodes.

Of Human Nature and Good Habits primarily deals with our everyday experiences of good life and living. The book contains chapters: Human Nature (By nature, all humans are alike, but practice sets them apart.); Nature vs. Nurture (One-third born (nature) and two-thirds made (nurture)! It is a huge statement.); Personality (Don’t let others evaluate you. Do not imitate others; do not impersonate others.); Patience and Confidence (Our ability grows or shrinks in proportion with our courage.); Discipline and Good Habits (Children are raw and wild by nature. They need to be disciplined.); Courage, Attitude, and Ambition (Do what you think is best; otherwise, you will do what others think is best.); Aim in Life (Everyone plans to succeed; no one plans to fail. But failure happens. Failure is one essential part of success; but the fear of failure is the killer of success.); Mind and Mental Habits (Genius and genuinely creative people have two things in abundance: curiosity and drive.); Mind and Body (Human brain—weighing about 3 pounds, accounting 2% of the body’s weight—is a biological machine that consumes 20% of the body’s energy production.); Mind and Memory (Speaking multiple languages may help protect cognitive health over the long term, and may delay Alzheimer’s disease.); Power of Meditation (It is not figuring out what is wrong with you and trying to fix it; rather, it is identifying what is right with you and doing more of it.); Greed, Envy, and Jealousy (During the evolutionary process, individuals with strong innate yearnings for food, sex, and material gain, have a better chance of surviving and reproducing than other individuals with less yearning.); Humor and Laughter (Laughter is one universal emotion!); Talk and Sing (Talk is the publication of thoughts! It is the momentum of our mind! Music is a special announcement how one’s feel of feelings is expressed in the form of sound.); Nature and Natural Habits (Man invents a mousetrap, but nature plays a better mouse.); Be Wise (Be aware of data aggression. Overloaded memory can extinguish our natural spirit. Don’t ingest anything that you can’t digest.); Be Happy (Count carefully what makes you worthwhile and happy, and discount wisely what makes you worthless and unhappy.); Be Honest, Simple, and Natural (Honesty is the state of mind; dishonesty is not. Therefore, it’s wise to encourage honesty rather than discourage dishonesty.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984566904

Prabhash Karan

Prabhash Karan is an engineer. He worked as a metallurgical engineer, civil engineer, structural engineer, and nuclear power plant engineer. Later, he worked as a software engineer writing computer codes in over two dozen programming languages. He was involved in developing IBM’s three operating systems. He speaks four languages and writes primarily in English and occasionally in his native language, Bengali. He writes very simple, targeted, and topic oriented, and makes the topic easy to get. He was born and raised in a loving family of eight in a remote village of coastal India. With no electricity and everybody in bare feet, he was raised in his multi-generational ancestral home—open air, earth and water, father and mother. He is a naturalist and a faithful follower of Mother Nature. He loves music and walking. Now over 70, he is a family man who still works fulltime, never been sick for a day in his life. He is an individual who is passionately optimistic about life. To him, life is so beautiful! He is the author of five books: Nature Is My Teacher; Of Human Nature and Good Habits; Life, Living and Lifestyle; How to Win Nature and Enjoy Good Life; and Health and Medical Care. His forthcoming book is In God We Trust.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Prabhash Karan.

Library of Congress Control Number:            2018913682

ISBN:                   Hardcover                978-1-9845-6692-8

                             Softcover                 978-1-9845-6691-1

                             eBook                      978-1-9845-6690-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/11/2019

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

735834

Of Human Nature and

Good Habits

Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

Contents

1 HUMAN NATURE

1.1 NATURE VS. NURTURE

1.2 PERSONALITY

1.3 PATIENCE AND CONFIDENCE

1.4 DISCIPLINE AND GOOD HABITS

1.5 COURAGE, ATTITUDE, AND AMBITION

1.6 AIM IN LIFE

2 MIND AND MENTAL HABITS

2.1 MIND AND BODY

2.2 MIND AND MEMORY

2.3 POWER OF MEDITATION

2.4 GREED, ENVY, AND JEALOUSY

2.5 HUMOR AND LAUGHTER

2.6 TALK AND SING

3 NATURE AND NATURAL HABITS

3.1 BE WISE

3.2 BE HAPPY

3.3 BE HONEST, SIMPLE, AND NATURAL

Nature Is My Teacher

Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

Contents

1 THE NATURE

1.1 MOTHER NATURE

1.2 THE UNIVERSE

1.3 PLANET EARTH

1.4 THE WEATHER

1.5 NATURAL RESOURCES

1.6 THE AIR WE BREATHE

1.7 THE WATER WE DRINK

1.8 THE FUTURE OF NATURE

2 ORIGIN OF LIFE

2.1 GIFT OF LIFE

2.2 HUMAN LIFE

2.3 HUMAN EVOLUTION

2.4 SELF AND THE REST OF THE WORLD

2.5 TIME GOES BY

2.6 LIFE CHANGES OVER TIME

3 HUMAN EMOTION AND LIFE EXPERIENCE

3.1 WORRIES, ANXIETIES, FEAR, AND REGRET

3.2 HOW TO DEAL WITH STRESS

3.3 DEPRESSION

3.4 KINDNESS AND DEVOTION

3.5 CHARITY AND HUMANITY

3.6 THE POWER OF HOPE

3.7 NO PAIN, NO GAIN

3.8 EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

Life, Living and Lifestyle

Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

Contents

1 ACTIVE LIFESTYLE

1.1 PLAY AND EXERCISE

1.2 JOY OF YOGA

1.3 LOSE WEIGHT

1.4 WALKING AND RUNNING

1.5 QUIT SMOKING

1.6 SLEEP

2 LIFE, LIVING AND WORK ETHICS

1.5 ETIQUETTE, COURTESY, AND BEHAVIOR

2.1 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2.2 ORGANIZE YOURSELF

2.3 WORK AND WORKPLACE

2.4 THE JOB WE DO

2.5 HOME SWEET HOME

2.6 PERSONAL FINANCE AND MONEY HABITS

How to Win Nature and

Enjoy Good Life

Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

Contents

1 LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS

1.1 MARRIAGE

1.2 FAMILY

1.3 CHILDREN

1.4 FRIENDS AND SOCIETY

2 ENJOY GOOD LIFE

2.1 LIFE IS GOOD

2.2 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

2.3 LIVE YOUNG, LIVE LONG

3 ENJOY GOOD FOOD

3.1 HOW FOOD WORKS

3.2 DIET AND NUTRITION

3.3 HERBS AND SPICES

Health and Medical Care

Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature

Contents

1 ENJOY GOOD HEALTH

1.1 MEN’S HEALTH

1.2 WOMEN’S HEALTH

1.3 CHILDREN’S HEALTH

2 MEDICAL CARE

2.1 MEDICAL SCIENCE

2.2 HUMAN ORGANS

2.3 ARTHRITIS

2.4 HEADACHE

2.5 BLOOD PRESSURE

2.6 HEART ATTACK AND STROKE

2.7 DIABETICS

2.8 CANCER

2.9 OLD AGE AND DEATH

To

my father, the wise man

Preface

Nature! Mother Nature! She is so ancient yet so novel! So mysterious yet so marvelous! A deep connection between evolution and civilization! She is my life, she is my universe. From birth to death, Mother Nature cradles me in her bosom. She is always in my mind. She is so dear. Nature is my teacher.

Simplicity is her beauty! Nature that envelopes all of us is so dear, so loving! She provides us the grace, the beauty, and the fluency of our lives. The love, care, and affection of all our lives are imbibed from her spirit. She breathes life into us. Grow up in the sun, grow up in the shadow, we live the life given to us by her goodness. It is very hard to avoid her; and even harder, not to. She is the creator, protector, and promoter of our mortal life. Our purpose in life is worthy of her benevolence. She elevates us to that, that we are. We all are her children. Mother has been and will always remain synonymous with love, devotion, and dedication, and its personification as a nurturing mother is so primitive. Giving nature the attributes of a mother, life-giving and nurturing, is as old as the evolution of human being as a thinking animal. It was then, it is now, and it will always be. We are at home and in harmony with her—in our labor, at our leisure, and at our pleasure. She is the reservoir of all happiness. We follow her in baby steps, wherever she leads us to.

Modern research reveals that innate genetic programming accounts for as much as 50 percent of our happiness. Fifty percent! Our satisfaction with life is, to a large extent, already embedded in our genes by Mother Nature. Genetic researchers claim that the fact that genes help us to be happy is not an accident, rather it is a result of evolutional and natural selection. (Other combined factors—such as education, finance, marital happiness, and the status quo—accounts for less than 10 percent of happiness. The remaining 40 percent or so, is dependent on how we cope with the adverse situations in our life.) In Mother Nature, a whole planet of happiness waits for us at every step. Most of us enjoy it, the wise rejoice it. It is the human friction with nature, a Midas touch of Mother Nature! It is the eternal mother-child relation—so normal, yet so essential that the absence of either is an exception. Trust in nature is the prime expression of our life. In trusting nature, we trust ourselves. Life is beautiful. So cool! Mother Nature is so simple, yet so beautiful!

Nature Is My Teacher; Of Human Nature and Good Habits; Life, Living and Lifestyle; How to Win Nature and Enjoy Good Life and Health and Medical Care constitute a series—that tells the same tale in separate episodes. The names are different, the contents are different, yet the idea is one: to discover and rediscover the beauty of nature, and explore the wisdom of Mother Nature. All five books are subtitled, Baby Steps to Follow Mother Nature, signifying its obvious meaning, a hand-holding guide to life. Also, all books are introduced with the same preface—just to establish one origin reflecting a strong relationship among the books. Each book is a companion of and complement to the others. Nature Is My Teacher primarily deals with the physical, notional, and real world in general. Of Human Nature and Good Habits deals with the everyday experiences of the good life. Life, Living and Lifestyle deals with work, play, sleep, finance, and the practical experiences of good living. How to Win Nature and Enjoy Good Life deals with love, relationship, marriage and family life. Health and Medical Care deals with health and health care services, and primarily, how to prevent diseases, stay healthy and thrive. The book—five books combined—provides a comprehensive familiarity about our planet, our environment, our cosmos, our bodies, our minds, our health, our food, our illnesses, our medics, our life, our job, our living, and our lifestyles. The book deals with social physics, customs, myths, biases, and the biology of life. It gives a fascinating glimpse of some of the topics that we vaguely know or are told for the first time. The author pen-points these points in detail.

It’s not a story until it’s told! The topic is not only a fact, figure, and statistics, but also a story. The book tells us a complete story about how a slight alteration can make a significant renovation in life. The life of a modern man is moving at a frantic pace like never before. People now live in a society cultured with instant gratification: fast food, fast cash, miracle cure, extreme need, and I-want-want-it-all and I-want-it-now. They are rushing, all the time, not knowing to where. They are marinated so much with the culture of speed, that there’s hardly any pause for the cause, and there is no recess from the race. There is no time to think it through—the very purpose of life. People fail to comprehend how easy it is to cure all these maladies and still live a life of modernity. The book provides steps—in baby steps—with case studies to resolve the issues. The methods suggested in the book are very basic and very easy to follow. Each topic, each page, and even each paragraph relates an idea that you may have encountered in your daily life. Some ideas are trivial and straightforward. The only need is a slight adjustment to our stereotypical thinking and a little tuning of our lifestyle.

We are one-third born (nature), two-thirds made (nurture)! If you think about it seriously, this is a huge statement. We have to nurture while being inclusive of nature and vice-versa and transform our God-given talent for our benefit. A small adjustment in lifestyle (nurture) can make a huge difference and improve our quality of life meaningfully. The adjustments are so minor that we hardly experience any inconvenience. A tiny tip, a little mindfulness, and a little planning will lead to a lot happier life. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors essentially lived on day-to-day hunts and day-to-day harvesting of roots and vegetables. From that evolutionary standpoint, we humans are not really designed to think ahead about the distant future. Yet, in many ways, our health and happiness are essentially the sums of our today’s activities, including the countless choices we make about what we eat, what we do, what we plan for tomorrow and even how we spend our time now (i.e., moving versus sitting). Small moves—eating healthy, sleeping well, leading a simple life—can transform our lives profoundly. A big resolution adds up from many micro-resolutions. These micro-resolutions fit into our daily life, stay sustained over time, and lead us into good habits (e.g., do your duty, don’t tell lies, be natural, have self-assurance, choose whole-foods, eat less, be mindful of what you do, and don’t sweat over small stuff). Many good ideas and habits are explained in detail and are made easy to understand and to implement. Many are easy to accrue and adapt. Once accrued and adapted, they work like clockwork and help us to achieve a sea of changes. Good habits stay good for good; break it now, it is broken for good. The book makes a comparative study of both good things and bad things, in order to comprehend the problem with dos and don’ts, and make a good life even better, especially with the ever-helping hand from nature. Nothing triumphs over nature! Here are the statistics: if you consider all human physiological reactions so far discovered in the whole universe, which is approximately 1,000,000, the existing targeted reactions by all medicines and medical treatments are only 250, or percentage-wise only 0.025 percent. With only a 0.025 percent score, while the human boast of medical marvels (human genome, CRIPER, antibiotics, and vaccines), nature remains reserved, with 99.975 percent. You got the point. So, if you are wise, you better follow Mother Nature, for the better of you. Also, when you better your life, you also help others—your family members, friends, and colleagues—to better their lives as well. Thus, one of the ideas of the book is to influence as many people to better their lives as possible so that its impact on society, in the world, as a whole, is significant. Compared to its book value, the value of the book is unrivaled. The book is a tribute to our society and our humanity, at large.

Invent nature! Inventing nature is so exciting—precisely because of its enormous varieties and complexities! When we are in harmony with nature, we live naturally within the moral gravity. We maintain our self-dignity and our standing is at par with our conscious moral terms. Our labor becomes lighter, our leisure becomes a pleasure. For instance, a school of neurologists and neuroscientists, says that it is simply a mind-fulfilling just by staring at the sky. Keeping that in mind, what we have attempted in the book is to connect and build a bridge, between our existing lifestyle and our natural love of life. The connection helps us see the green of the trees, the blue of the sky, the birds fly, the rise of the sun, the gargle of the ocean, with a new look. The book transports you to nature, gives you a tour of wilderness, and inspires you to the many wonders of life. It makes you feel that these were there before your eyes all these days, yet, you missed them all. The joy of life lets you feel the traction of living. It is so close to the earth, yet so open to the world.

The views expressed in the book are solely of the author. The author is not an inventor or an originator, but a simple messenger who delivers the message. The book does not validate or endorse any scientific, medical, ethical, or religious view, advice, or recommendation. The book is for information only. Also, the information presented here does not claim textbook accuracy; rather, it is a general guide. The book gives a good faith summary of a good life. Some facts may be inadequate, inaccurate, deprecated, or outdated, therefore, any error, omission, and exclusion are on the part of the author, for which a plea is acknowledged in advance.

You cannot fight the facts. Facts are nothing but the interpretation of data, and they are not always linear. They are not a product of assumption, speculation, opinion, or notion. By expanding their explanatory power, the fascinating facts explained in the book reinforce the topic with research results, discoveries, surveys, and statistics. Today, there is so much information, so much communication, and so much evidence that one can no longer plead ignorance. Considering how vital these facts are, willful blindness is nothing but an incredible ignorance. Facts and statistics help us explain and compare the as-is with the as-should-be. Sometimes, statistics are as mystifying as they are enlightening. Thus, in order to keep the motion of the topic steady, the key data are skimmed and highlighted broadly to the context and then rounded up or down to make it generic, casual, simple, and, more importantly, easy to understand and remember. For instance, our sun is 93 million (92,960,000) miles away from Earth, and the Moon, one-quarter million (238,855) miles. Quantitatively, if any data are of any special importance, they are put in a numeric rather than text format. (Half is not exactly 1/2. The numeral 1/2 is more significant than half. Radiation from 1 chest CT scan = 350–400 standard chest X-rays or 1,400 dental X-rays or 70,000 backscatter airport scans or nineteen years of smoking of one pack of cigarettes per day. Text format: Greed is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism.) The percent and percent sign % are used interchangeably, % is used more for clarity. The data address the measure of the context and help us understand the topic in perspective. Some text of the topic is sub-texted for clear understanding like: The U.S. jails (jails are for short-term, minor crimes) and prisons (long-term, serious crimes) are primarily male-gender environment.

The book is an index and an introduction to many of our day-to-day concerns. By design, some vital information is repeated, sometimes immediately and, at other times, in different contexts, with the hope of meeting at some point, the person reading the book at random. Some sentences are repeated according to their importance. Some information goes beyond the scope of the chapter. Some technical terms, never heard of before, are translated into generic names. The book is targeted neither to professionals nor to experts but to ordinary people who need a how-to manual on everyday problems. Written by a reader like you, for a reader like you, the book may not teach you how to drive, but it will prompt you to safe driving. It may not prescribe you medicine, but it will prompt you to prevent illness in the first place and in the event of illness, to seek information and medication. The reader’s intelligence is never discounted, never ever. Far from it. Instead, it is appreciated.

Many of the ideas put in here are so basic that the reader has experienced them already: some familiar things you, the reader, will know from your gut feeling. For instance, it’s often convenient, and even a good idea to be irrational or simplify a decision, and then create a rule for your own use only that works for you most of the time. You can stick to it. One size never fits all. The social order at a national level, may not fit at an individual level, because every individual is unique and discrete. Many ideas are illustrated in the book from which you may pick and choose. Identifying your own thoughts with an additional endorsement from the book nevertheless reinforces your belief system and your own views, and thus fosters your self-assurance and helps you to improve your confidence and will make your bad day better. For a test-drive, crack open any book, at any chapter you like, and read any paragraph, now. Try it, test it, trust it. Overall, the initiative here is to make an idea work for you. Be optimistic, act realistic. If it works, hold on to it. If it’s worth sharing, share the idea and spread the knowledge. In fact, the broad readership of the book comes predominantly from word of mouth.

This book is indebted to hundreds of books, publications, journals, and articles. It is an enormous undertaking in trying to synthesize all the information delivered to the reader in a story-telling format, and at the same time, as accurate and as up-to-date. Again, make no mistake, the author is merely a messenger, not an inventor, originator, or any of that sort. Although filled with exciting ideas and fascinating facts, this book is not an academic work in the sense that everything here requires to be acknowledged or footnoted. It contains numerous comments, notes, and quotes. They are not attributed, and at times they are somewhat condensed; otherwise, they would interrupt the flow of the go. While the main topic is emphasized, some details are encapsulated, making it a more readable tale—a tale of arts, science, life, and nature. Readers are invited to join the debate and are respectfully requested to send their comments, complaints, and compliments. Readers, please note here that for the book’s next revision, any correction, suggestion, addition, deletion, or information, submitted to the author, will be highly treasured. The contents may become the property of the author, in which case it is assumed that the reader gives the author the right to use it suitably with or without compensation. All trademarks used in the book are the property of their respective owners and do not relate to any endorsement of any kind.

The book is topic oriented and detailed and covers everyday aspects of life. Out of more than a hundred standalone topics, readers are suggested to read only those that interest them now, not the entire book. Try any chapter, any page, or at least any paragraph—right now. At the end of the Preface, you get an overview. Each paragraph usually starts with a declarative sentence that announces the idea of the topic that follows. You then promptly feel the pull of the topic. While the book targets a wide audience giving readers a choice between numerous isolated, interrelated, and even unrelated topics, a typical reader is requested to read only a few topics. That’s worth having the book handy—to read a few pages now and then and refer back to it later. Even the author, who updates the topic periodically, finds some topic interestingly afresh.

This book is a quick and easy handbook, reference manual, good-will guide, how-to guide, you name it. It talks about the topics ranging from the creation of the universe to human evolution to modern-day civilization to current hypes to age-old myths and mysteries that mystify us. Why is the sky blue? Why do we typically submit to the situation, saying yes, or to go with the flow? Why do people often fail to recognize their own voice? How do one’s prayers affect others? Why do twins think and act alike? Why do half of all resolutions fail, and one-third of New Year’s resolutions do not make it to February (especially for weight loss)? Why don’t wearable fitness devices necessarily make you fitter? Or, you don’t need to use soap every day in your shower. Or, how to navigate through the shifting views, say, recommendation and confusion about aspirin, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, fat, eggs, vitamins, and dietary supplements. The book explains it all. The book is a myth buster, a zeal enhancer, and a life changer. Good health is always associated with good habits. Good habits are surprisingly few and basic; so, anyone can practice them without even trying. Knowing this helped the author when he tried for the first time. Written with uncomplicated clarity, various topics ring a bell. The book is a collection of explanations, propositions, and suggestions. The book possesses the power to change your good life better, for good. It will make you a new you!

Enjoy reading!

1 Human Nature

If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.

—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), 16th president of the United States

In the human body—always—a human is inside. Human nature is a very common psychological attribute of all humankind. It is shared by most human beings. The characteristics of humans are generally expressed while living in a primary group. They are the fundamental dispositions and traits of human characteristics that include ways of feeling, thinking, and reacting that all normal human beings have in common. By nature, all humans are alike, but practice sets them apart. A loving person loves to live in a loving world, a hostile person in a hostile world, and a monk among the monks. Birds of a feather flock together. Similar people like to get together, so much so that they would rather be wrong than different. People as a group can be viewed as a spatiotemporal aggregate—an object for observation, study, and manipulation.

Human nature is not necessary to be consistent. When we are likely to believe something (or trust someone), we see all the arguments for it and turn a blind eye to any arguments against it. When we want to find fault in someone, we all gang up on him. Even we ourselves generate some line of arguments, if needed. Halo effect, as it is called, in theory, is a cognitive bias that involves one attribute to influence the other: if you favour a politician’s politics, you are likely to think he is a statesman too. Favourite film stars exploiting public sentiment and becoming influential politicians is common. In this way, we get things systematically wrong. Conversely, when people doubt more of their own beliefs, paradoxically, they are more inclined to be in favour of them. People who are forced to confront counter evidence even more forcefully advocate their original beliefs. And in such a case, a man can be viewed as a self-motivated mover—a being who changes himself and changes the world through the decisions he makes, who determines values and invests in those values that can make his life and his world according to the values that he determines, and who, in an extreme case, even terminates his own life by choice. And yet, paradoxically, the saddest truth is that more evil is done by the people who cannot make up their mind to be either civil or evil.

Good nature is valued more than authority, more than treasure, and more than an honour to a person who possesses it. Good natures are the qualities possessed by most of the important and interesting people all over the world. What they have in common—like being generous, active, caring, humble, daring, original, brave, strange, adventurous, and self-assured—gives them their superior status. They hardly care for praise or status from others. They seem to be surprisingly common people who mix with us, listen to us, and talk to us. But they are great listeners who listen more than they talk; they are not afraid of naysayers, and neither are they caught up with the pressure to be interesting to others. Moral comes to them with an easy, natural disposition. They are a few interesting people to be around. It is also a fact that the natural disposition of our genetic characteristics allows the good in us to blossom, dwarfing the bad in us. While listening, you may not hear, but they do. They are not extraordinary; they are in the true order of nature. They are moral naturalists. As Napoleon Bonaparte once said, Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.

Where does our moral sense—right and wrong—come from? Most people think that it is a gift from the god, who reveals his laws and order and elevates us with his love and justice. Some believe that we figure out the norms and senses for ourselves, according to the situation, by using our innate capacity of reasoning and choosing a philosophical system that we live by. Some moral naturalists however think that we have moral senses that emerged from a long history of relationships, and by osmosis, we learn morality just by observing people we live with, in reality.

Our moral sense actually began back in our evolutionary past. It began in the similar way other animals learned to cooperate. Our moral sense is similar to our sense of taste. As we have natural receptors in our mouth that help us pick up sweetness and sourness, we have natural receptors that help us to recognize goodness and badness. Just as some of our basic food tastes can develop into an appreciation of many cuisines, our basic moral senses can also develop into many more moral cultures. In one experiment, researchers showed babies a scene featuring one player struggling to climb a hill, another player trying to help him, and a third player trying to hinder him. Researchers observed that babies as little as six months old expressed their preference for the helper over the hinderer. In that sequel plays, the hindering player is either punished or rewarded. In that case, slightly older than eight-month-old babies preferred the player who was punishing the hinderer over the ones being nice to the hinderer. This demonstrates the very fact that humans are born with an elementary sense of fairness from very early on. A utilitarian perspective assesses the action of its consequences—if it does good, it’s good. A deontological approach assesses the action itself—do not kill (a serial killer) even if the killing does a good.

Humans are born equipped to differentiate fairness from unfairness. These moral faculties determine the way we perceive and respond to our real world. Feelings of fear make people risk-averse, feeling of disgust to refrain from empathy, and feeling of anger to seek revenge. Following a quick look, our brain can immediately determine and judge how trustworthy a human face is before it fully perceives it. It’s our good first impression! A lot of things happen at first sight. In our subconscious mind, an assessment is made instantly, as soon as we see a person, based purely on his or her physical appearance and behavioural act—be it in any social interaction, such as in the first date (e.g., love at first sight), or in business negotiation, or in any intellectual assessment. A connection is created, a trust or no-trust is built. If the person’s face looks trustworthy, we are more likely to collaborate in deals, exchange views, share our resources, and quite often offer ourselves as potential mates. Psychologically, in this context, you may underestimate how much other persons like you after they meet you for the first time; but the fact is that, people actually like you more, than you think. The liking gap happens not only to shy people, as one might think, but across all personality types. Underselling yourself socially, may cause sadness, anxiety, loss of confidence, or fear of missing out. So, you need to factor in the liking gap and be mindful about it on various personal interactions. (Brown eyes are deemed more trustworthy than blue; quick-moving eyes are more impulsive and less likely to wait in line; and baby-faced people with shorter chins and lower-positioned facial features, are superior in honesty.) This supports the idea of snap judgment, which takes only about 30 milliseconds as seen in a brain scanner. While focused on activity in the amygdala (which is responsible for social and emotional behaviour), one experiment notice that the specific areas of the amygdala are activated according to our judgments of trustworthiness or untrustworthiness. It is an evidence that our brain makes snap judgments of people before we process enough information of who they are or what they look like. It all comes naturally. Called xenophobia, the fear and distrust of a perceived foreigner or stranger can manifest itself in a social context, involving relations and perceptions of an in-group towards an outgroup, including the fear of losing one’s identity. Xenophobia generates a suspicion of activities and sparks aggression, with the desire for elimination. The terms xenophobia and racism are sometimes used interchangeably. Xenophobia is a political term, not a medical phobia. Sometimes, we make moral judgments intuitively and justify them later; other times, we just think automatically, like a camera—point and shoot. Both works.

Gender is unquestionably one of the important features of a person’s identity. It is the first thing one person notices in another. It is also the first thing infants learn to discriminate. Parents have seen that, despite their best efforts to give soccer balls to their daughters and doll sets to their sons, girls still flock to dollhouses while boys run to the playgrounds. (Researchers, fashion designers, and toy makers are now toying with gender-neutral—un-gendered or gender-blurred—toys.) As a result, pathological potentiality is generally squelched in girls while it is encouraged in boys. Some social thinkers strongly believe that boys do better in classes if taught by men while girls do better if taught by women. This is perhaps more proof that nature is more important than nurture. One 2006 study established that boys thrive in classes taught by men while girls do better when instructed by women. Many scholars suggest other variables, like a teacher’s scholarship, teaching experience, and the number of students per classroom. The way the lessons are delivered to the students by the individual teacher, whether male or female, surely has to do something with it. There is not much contradiction between this concept and the modern biological concept of a genetic code, according to which these characteristics are encoded in our DNA.

It’s not new; it’s a long time coming! Boys will be boys has long been borne out. To be a boy is a serious liability in today’s classroom. Typically, boys as a group are noisy, unruly, and hard to manage. Some are messy, inattentive, and cannot sit still. In general, children are movement-based; forcing them to sit still is pushing against human nature. At school, they bolt through corridors, ricochet off classroom walls, and tear around the playground. According to one Finnish study in 2016, researchers at the University of Eastern Finland tracked 153 kids aged six to eight and measured their physical activity and sedentary time. Correspondingly, they recorded their reading and math abilities. They conclude that the more time the grade-1-boys spend sitting and the less time being physically active, the fewer benefits they have in reading and math in the next two following years. For girls, however, sitting for a long time didn’t seem to have any effect on their ability to learn. Boys’ liveliness, according to another study, leads teachers to underestimate their intellectual abilities and academic performances. One psychologist put it cleverly: girls’ behavior is the gold standard, and boys are defective girls. Boys are not doing well academically. Compared to girls, boys learn less, score lower grades, win fewer prizes, and are less likely to go to college (girls/boys: 60/40). In today’s knowledge-based and globally competitive world, success in the classroom has never been more crucial to young men’s life prospects. Women as a group are adapting the trend. Men are not.

Parents and teachers need to understand that children are movement-based and also recognize that each child is an entire person. Biologically, physical activities stimulate more blood vessels in the brain to support more brain cells, enhancing children’s performance. In their 2013 report, the Institute of Medicine concluded that children who are more active show greater attention, have faster cognitive processing speed and perform better on standardized academic tests than children who are less active. Another study in 2017, by Lund University in Sweden, reveals that students, especially boys, who have daily physical education do better in school. It transforms their school into a place where education is a joy. Plus, it makes them come to school to enjoy. Pushing against human nature by asking children to sit still is a flawed mandate. However, it is also true that an ability to control one’s impulse, sit still, be quiet, and pay attention to, is essential to success in school later in life.

While the whole educational system cannot be overhauled overnight, educational experts have come up with three modest proposals for reform, helping boys be more focused: (1) bring back recess (boys tend to be more seriously affected by lack of recess than girls); (2) turn boys into readers (boys score lower than girls on national reading tests); and (3) boost young male imagination (schools are to work with, not against, the dynamic imagination of the boys to grow them into educated young men).

If human character is so strictly encoded in the DNA molecular structure, what then is the role of environment in shaping human behaviour? It’s a yes-no-maybe-so answer. Defining the extent to which environment shapes us is a complex issue. We already know that as far as physical characteristics are concerned, such factors as diet, exercise, conditions of work, and the like affect men’s health and their predisposition to diseases. When it comes to defining the influence of environment on mental and psychological conditions, it becomes even more complex. This is because while there is a scope for precise measurement of physiological characteristics, it is not so with intelligence. Firstly, there is serious controversy regarding the definition of intelligence. There is an ongoing debate about IQ and EQ. Moreover, there are differences of views as to the scope for its discrete measurement. However, one rule of thumb measure is that, for example, when poor children are adapted into upper-middle-class households, their IQ is raised by twelve to eighteen points, depending on the methods of various studies, and that IQ rises sharply over time.

Intelligence is very hard to test and to measure. From our primeval time, longer pregnancy and extended lactation period are responsible for our relatively big brains. In the last two million years, the human brain has increased three times, from 1.25 pounds to 3 pounds. That made the leading difference between humans and other animals. Looking at the long-term effects of prematurity on higher-order of cognitive abilities, such as attention and memory as measured by IQ tests, it has been observed that adults who were born prematurely scored 8.4 points less on average than those who were born full-term. (The fetus grows approximately double in weight overall during only the last eleven weeks of pregnancy. Babies born as early as twenty-two weeks may have brain with blood vessels that are not fully developed yet may bleed into the fluid-filled area of the brain.) This is most likely due to evolutionary alterations when babies’ brains developed, as well as (minor but real) brain injuries caused by leaving the womb premature. Even minor injuries because of premature birth can hinder brain plasticity and delay normal cognitive development. After birth, breast-feeding is a very effective way to recover and promote some of the early brain development that didn’t get a chance to occur in utero. Thus, enhancing the cognitive development of these children as much as possible is very important. Bottom line: longer pregnancy + breast-feeding = bigger brains + longer life.

Human brains undergo more changes in adolescent years than at any other time of life. It is even true before the birth and during infancy. A teenager’s IQ rises or falls significantly to register large enough changes to sway a child from average up to gifted or push down to below average as much as by 20 points. This is a huge difference. The IQ change is directly proportionate to the change of brain structure, researchers have found.

The development of evolutionary biology has added to the complexity of the problems of determining the impact of environment on human behaviour. According to some acceptable concepts, reason and intellect are not the only matters that distinguish human beings from other animals; we must also include cumulative cultural adaption and social learning, including visual theft (learning by watching). Besides, human beings have other characteristics that are not found so much in other animals. Humans are the only animals who can fabricate tools and use tools for their purposes. They are the only social animal and the only animal capable of accumulating, remembering, and communicating with fellow beings through pre-recognized acts and languages. These are essentially non-physiological characteristics that are related to the mind and intellect. Any inquiry as to the extent of the influence of environment on the mental faculties invariably has to negotiate the complex question of the mind-body relationship. It’s a long, lengthy negotiation!

When did humans become mentally modern? Ever since Darwin came up with the idea of evolution, it has been obvious that much of the human body we have today has been forming since millions of years before the first primate notionally emerged. Similarly, there has been a dominant era we truly became human, from a primitive brain to a highly evolved human brain. The foundation is to think and act symbolically—in everything we do. We live in a symbolic world. Symbols—the tree, the flag, the bird, the book, the love—are shorthand for ideas. Some go even one step further and claim that these symbols not only point to truth but that they are the truth. The human brain is skilled in observational learning and high-level cognition, and that results in the evolution of the human hand, with its great dexterity and fine motor control. Our thumb is one prime example of that; it allows us to make tools.

When we imagine symbols, we generally think of physical objects of some dimensions. But in our real life, symbols play a much larger role—for example, students dress like students and judges dress like judges. School, business, military uniforms have been evolved for a reason: they are symbols to identify your position in the world, for the wearer and for the observer. Once we possess that ability for symbolic thought and language, then all other things become possible. We use language to make a meaning of the world, to capture and conceptualize the experience, and to communicate to the world. For example, through language, we can pass down what we have learned, organizing larger and larger groups of people who can do more and more complex things, like building computers and rockets and everything else in modern life. Even though the excavation of language is difficult, the evolution of symbolic thought and the implementation of language were the first few pieces of evidence that we had acquired this magical ability and that we had become mentally