NATURE OF MAN. The human nature which relies both in our animalistic impulses and our rational thoughts will always be inescapable.
Humans remain in a very fragile equilibrium throughout all their life. We constantly receive different signals from our mind and body that guide us on our decisions. For example, we are faced with the animal need to feed ourselves, but we also make a rational decision by choosing which things to eat. One day, we might decide to eat fast-food to have more pleasure enjoying food and another day we might eat something to be healthier. We go through a rational process while also responding to a basic need.
The painting of the Creation of Adam can be interpreted as the truest Nature of Man. On the left, Adam, representing the flawed condition of Man, the same Man that couldn’t overcome his temptations and ate the apple. On the right is God and all His Benevolence which angels try to grasp. However, the fingers of God and His soon to be Creation are on the edge of touching, as to give the person watching the painting an immense frustration, as they are a millisecond away from the creation of Man. As Man is given a fraction of this Divine Gift, he is thus created in the absolute center of sin and virtue. He has to come to terms with these two powerful and contradicting Natures that inhabit him, because he runs the risk of leaving his humanity behind if he would turn his back on either of his Natures.
The very moment where we deny ourselves the right to satisfy natural, beneficial natural impulses, we stray away from our humanity. Deny your body the essential need of doing physical activity and you’ll soon find yourself in a very bad state of mind. If you deprave yourself of higher behaviour and cave in to every animal impulse you have, you will suffer from a putrid state of mind as well.
In a sense, we are both animal and human at the same time. This is what Jesus represents: the Son of God, both fully human and fully God. It represents the most perfect ideal for a human. Humans aspire to be as virtuous and perfect as Jesus. We understand that we are bound to animalistic urges; however we try to be as virtuous as we can. This is where the idea of humans being sinners comes from and why it is repeated throughout Christianity that humans will always sin. Christians understand that they can never be perfect, yet are pushed to the idea of perfection that is God.
When humans reject their nature, they lose all their Beauty. They become a shadow of their former selves. They are drowned in their own foolishness, thinking that Natural Laws can be applied to others, but not to them. They create their own constructed stream of consciousness where they are not held down by their own Nature. They fail to understand that accepting our weakness is part of becoming better. By accepting our Nature, we are able to be truly conscious and become more virtuous.
When we reject who we are, we embark on a very dangerous and self-destructing path. Just as we wouldn’t expect car to cross an ocean, we shouldn’t expect humans to become great and virtuous if they reject the principles on which they were created.
To live against our Nature is to not live at all. By refusing to acknowledge our own shortcomings, we become tied to accomplish what is only mediocre and fail to become the best version of ourselves. We will never be able to surpass our Nature, yet by working in conjunction with it, we will be greatly rewarded.
-@virtue_of_aesthetic (On Instagram)
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