8Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature is a book I wrote to explain how civilization destroys happiness. What do I mean by the wisdom of human nature? Well, all animate beings come into this world with an inborn wisdom--the instincts that inform them on how to behave in ways that enable their species to flourish. This wisdom has been genetically accumulating, in each species, since the first stirrings of life on earth. Countless species are able to live in sufficient harmony for life to flourish on this planet, not because animals are good. It's because, like us, they love to do things that make them feel good: Evolution has programmed their feelings so that, when they seek pleasure, and avoid pain, they are serving life, without knowing it. In other words, evolution created a reality in which happiness, and species survival, go hand in hand.
That's how life flourished on this planet for hundreds of millions of years until only just few a thousand years ago, when humans invented civilization. Since then, humans have not been living in harmony with anything. Our survival requires, not that we seek happiness by being true to our innate wisdom, but that we comply with the laws of sovereign states. Living, as we do, in a world in which we must repress our inborn wisdom to survive, we are increasingly anxiety ridden, and our species is in trouble.
If what I have said makes sense to you, then you will love this book. If it makes just a little sense, I encourage you to read it, anyhow. Whether you agree, are disagree with my thesis, I promise one thing: You will get an entirely new perspective on what life is about, one that can be found nowhere else. Given the increasingly painful circumstances of our existence, a new perspective is long overdue. It might enable us to re-inhabit the reality in which contentment is natural, not something we continually strive for, but never really experience.