Humans Are Both Great and Despicable

Before you start reading or listening to this book, a friendly reminder! The entire book revolves around breaking through conventional understanding to cultivate immortality, so be prepared. It will challenge your habitual perceptions. If your affinity for cultivation is poor, you won't understand what's being said and will get bogged down in arguments. Conversely, those with high comprehension in cultivation will find inspiration.

Friends watching this book, please do not blindly imitate the content within. Because everyone's circumstances and understanding are different, it may not be suitable for everyone.

Most importantly! If you can't persist through the first fifty chapters, you can leave now. Because as it challenges your perceptions, many things will undoubtedly differ greatly from your previous understanding. Reading only a few chapters will not only be useless but harmful. It's better to leave early to avoid wasting your time.

If, after reading this reminder, you are still prepared to continue, then allow me to brag about something real to open your eyes.

(After I injured my leg and became disabled, I had permanent screws and a steel plate inserted into my bone. The specialist doctor delivered a verdict, saying that even in the best-case recovery scenario, I would only be able to walk, and my leg could only bend to ninety degrees at most. Any further would be impossible. However, I recovered completely in just three years, able to run and jump. The book details how I recovered.)

Alright, bragging session over, let's begin.

As the saying goes, everyone eats for themselves, and everyone endures their own hardships.

People, within their respective environments, experience their own circumstances, leading to their own perceptions.

These perceptions have commonalities but are not identical.

Simply put, everyone lives in their own world.

This is the fundamental reason why everything is created by the mind, and why the mind manifests things.

Let's first discuss the origin of thought and consciousness. When humans are first born, they have no self-awareness. Or rather, before the age of three, they have no thoughts. All joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness operate purely on instinct. Even defecation and urination are driven by instinct.

Gradually, through parental education and increasing familiarity with this strange world, self-awareness and consciousness, or rather, thoughts and perceptions, begin to develop after the age of three.

From this point on, humans begin to control their bodies, slowly gaining control over their actions and some physiological states.

After the age of five, they start to shed the habit of soiling their diapers.

At this stage, people begin to distinguish between family, friends, relatives, good and bad, right and wrong.

Of course, these are not innate qualities brought from before birth but are instilled through postnatal education.

From this point, it's not hard to see that an individual's traits are not innate but acquired.

For instance, if you were raised in the countryside, all your habits and perceptions would be formed in that environment, thus cultivating a rural mindset.

If you were raised in the city, you would develop a city-dwelling mindset.

Observant friends can look up reports online about humans raised by wolves or monkeys. Apart from their human appearance, everything else is determined by their environment. Those raised by wolves exhibit wolf-like habits and thinking, while those raised by monkeys develop monkey-like thinking and habits.

In other words, humans are like vessels. From infancy, whatever you instill in them, that's what they will become.

I once had an experience raising pigs. For some reason, at a certain stage, the pigs I raised began to fight amongst themselves, with several ganging up on one.

I didn't think too much about it at the time, only feeling very angry because the pig being bullied was nearly beaten to death. That was thousands of yuan! Moreover, I had raised them from piglet to adulthood, feeding and caring for them. Losing one or two would have truly pained me.

They fought for three consecutive days, with the same scenario every day: a group bullying one.

Afterward, I separated the three bullied pigs into a different pen, and that solved the problem.

During this time, my maternal uncle, Big Brother, said something that left a deep impression on me. He said, "You've got a personality, and your pigs have personality too, huh? Others raise pigs for a long time without fighting, but yours started fighting the first time you raised them, and so fiercely!"

(In Northeast China, "having personality" means being very individualistic, or perhaps a bit rebellious.)

I pondered this statement repeatedly. Why would pigs fight? Is it because they have emotions? Do they fight when they get angry?

So, if pigs can get angry and have emotions, does that mean pigs can think? Do they have their own consciousness?

Then, apart from external differences, if pigs can think and have emotions, what's the difference between pigs and humans?

They eat, drink, excrete, sleep, experience joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness at their leisure.

If there's no difference between pigs and humans, does that mean pigs are just humans with different appearances?

What about monkeys? Horses? Apes, elephants, giraffes, cats, and dogs?

If we view all living beings from this perspective, can I assume that they are merely different from humans in appearance and cognition, with no significant differences otherwise?

What about flies and mosquitoes?

I feel like they're all the same.

I know some friends will say that flies and mosquitoes are pests, and so are rats.

If I say that thinking this way is a very selfish act, I know many people will curse me, but it doesn't matter.

Let me give another analogy.

You know from childhood that bees are diligent and beneficial, right? Because they make honey and pollinate flowers.

But have you ever considered that their pollination is passive? They are merely collecting materials to make honey, and honey is their food.

You can say they are diligent, but if they weren't diligent, wouldn't they starve? Don't you think?

It's like farmers. Many people praise farmers for their hard work and simplicity. But do farmers want to be so diligent? If they weren't diligent, wouldn't they starve to death? What is simplicity? Is it being uneducated? Is being naively foolishly kind considered simplicity?

Don't they also wish to live a life of abundance and be served, like wealthy people?

Don't you agree?

Let's talk about rats again. People say they are harmful, but if you look at it from a rat's perspective, they are actually just doing what bees do: diligently going out to find food.

But why are they called harmful? Because they infringe upon human interests, specifically food. They compete with humans for food, so humans define them as harmful.

If you steal vegetables in the city, people call you immoral, but not harmful. If you steal corn in the countryside, people call you immoral, but not harmful.

However, if other beings were to harm human interests, they would be deemed harmful.

Humans position themselves as advanced animals because they have mastered technology and tools.

Therefore, they evaluate all other beings as inferior to humans.

From a human perspective, there's nothing wrong with this.

When a tiger eats a rabbit or a sheep, humans consider it normal. But if a tiger eats a human, it becomes unacceptable.

Let me clarify something here: I am also human. I have a human body and human cognition. The reason I say these things is not out of sainthood, compassion, or anything similar. I am simply discussing the matter objectively, observing ourselves as humans from an impartial standpoint.

Some say humans are the noblest animals in the world, while others claim humans are the most despicable beings.

I don't deny either of these points. As cultivators say, humans are beings who embody both gods and demons, coexisting with both good and evil.

So, I must ask, who defines what good is? And who defines what evil is? Is it not defined by humans themselves?

Killing a good person is evil, while killing an evil person is good. If you think good thoughts this second, you are a good being. If you think evil thoughts the next second, you are an evil being.

When intending to do good results in evil, and intending to do evil results in good, how can we distinguish? Do we still need to involve our own thoughts and emotions, or those we empathize with, before making a judgment?

From these points, it's not hard to see that humans are actually the most selfish beings in the world.

Precisely because human thought is complex and humans share the commonality of good and evil, most humans, when contemplating distinctions or differentiating between good and evil, right and wrong, will start from their own self-interest.

Therefore, if you ask me, humans are both great and despicable.

Greatness lies in their efforts to create living space for other beings in the world after they themselves are well-fed.

Despicableness lies in their tendency to resort to slaughter and plunder under the banner of justice when their own interests are threatened.