Are we peaceful by nature? Are we basically good?

Last updated on December 1, 2021

A blogger I have never met and hardly know, made me cry. Silent, happy tears rolled down my cheeks. My heart was overflowing with gratitude, my mind puzzled by the kindness of a stranger. Sometimes it’s not just the gift itself, but the thought that counts.

When I started sharing our story about how we lost almost everything and became homeless (houseless), I wished to give hope to others facing a similar situation. I didn’t expect to find joy and hope for myself.

In one installment I wrote about our Christmas in 2009. How different it had been compared to the ones before, and how saddened I had been when I missed parts of our Christmas decorations. The Austrian Christmas pyramid, a treasured piece reminding me of my childhood, had been forgotten by me. I packed other things that would help us survive instead, didn’t even think about traditions or my roots.

A blogger reached out to me and when she did, she to put something back in balance that had been out of balance for a while.

I thanked Cynni, told her it wasn’t necessary. So many things that seemed so important at first, just aren’t relevant anymore, other items I have been able to replace over the years.

I will never forget her kindness. How could I?

And, as it wouldn’t be enough to rattle my world, a few days later I read a story in the news which got everybody’s attention. An innocent man, who had spent decades in prison, was finally set free. After spending the biggest part of his adult life incarcerated, he won’t be eligible for compensation because the state of Missouri, sadly, only pays if people are exonerated through DNA evidence.

With no payment coming from the state of Missouri, the now 62-year-old Kevin Strickland was left to lean on the generosity from strangers, and support from nonprofits like the Miracle of Innocence.

How can this even happen? Hasn’t he suffered enough? It irritated me and many others. Pay him for heaven’s sake, that’s the least you can do.

Someone started a fundraiser at GoFundMe.com with the goal of raising $7,500. It’s now up to 1.3 million dollars and climbing. People do care, and my eyes got sweaty again when I read some of the comments donors had left.

With so many good people, why do I (and perhaps you too) think that most people are bad?

I read in a book that our bad image of humankind comes from several sources. They called it the ‘negativity effect.’ We are more sensitive to evil than to good. There are evolutionary reasons for this. For a long time, it has made sense to be afraid of spiders or snakes. No one died of too much fear, but of too little.

Nowadays we are getting flooded with bad news, which I believe leads to people starting from a distorted image of others. If we think badly about people and believe everybody is out to get us, it works a lot like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We get what we expect. Being prepared for unpleasant experiences with others makes us more selfish and less willing to help.

At a university, students were asked what behavior they would expect in the event of a massive emergency in an airplane. On Planet A, passengers helped each other, on Planet B panic and brutal selfishness took over. About 97% of the students believed that we live on Planet B.

Guess what? They are wrong, as wrong as they can be -and so was I.

Think about it, on the sinking Titanic, in the collapsing World Trade Center, in bombed London, and in New Orleans, when the dams broke in 2005, people everywhere helped each other. Disasters, therefore, bring out the best in people. Only a few were selfish and ruthless.

Why do we always forget that?

Humans could only prevail on Earth because they cooperated and did not compete against each other. Those who were friendly and trustworthy had a better chance of surviving. Our ancestors were wandering gatherers and hunters who rarely fought against each other. This is proven by the study of skeletons from this period, on which we almost never fight traces of fighting.

Cave paintings don’t show a fight between humans.

Are we peaceful by nature? Are we basically good?

Films and books tell us otherwise. In “The Lord of the Flies”, a fantasy novel by William Golding, a group of boys end up on a desert island, and soon they go after each other’s throats. However, in reality, a true story of six boys who were stranded on the Pacific island of Ata for 15 months, teaches us otherwise. They stuck together and managed their lives in solidarity. They survived.

We need to realize who we are. All the manipulation coming from social media and news channels with neverending bad news, it’s cancer to our hearts and souls and it has spread already. It has reached our brain.

I (we) need to focus on the good within us and around us.

Yes, we are basically good.