Never satisfied - essay

The white men were many and we could not hold our own with them. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had a small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit made them. They were not, and would change the rivers if they did not suit them.
Chief Joseph

Little did Chief Joseph realize that changing the rivers was little more than child's play to the whites that were taking over his territory. They didn't hesitate to create great lakes, eliminate other lakes, move mountains from one place to another, and so on. It seems they would never be satisfied with anything, certainly not with what the Great Spirit had created.

I was stimulated to think about this on a recent automobile trip. Listening to the radio I learned about Popcorn lung disease. Have you ever heard of Popcorn lung disease? Neither had I. It seems that some people who work in popcorn processing facilities (you know, where they create popcorn to be popped at home, etc.), can come down with Popcorn lung disease. It turns out this has nothing to do with the popcorn itself but, rather, with some substance they spray the kernels with so they will have an artificial taste of butter. This led me to consider, why do this? Why just not leave the popcorn alone as the Great Spirit must have intended (or at least I think he/she/it must have)? I guess it is because humans are never satisfied. Think of it. What is it we do not seem to think we can improve on? We create dams and nowadays even artificial reefs. We raise oysters and clams in artificial beds we created and even now raise fish in farms (nature doesn't seem to keep up with our demands). We have selectively bred animals and plants because we were not satisfied with the way they were naturally. And now we even genetically modify them because, apparently, they are just not good enough as they grow naturally. Having eliminated most breeds of turkeys we now depend upon only one or two that can no longer breed without help (have to have that breast meat). Vegetables are no long grown for taste but for shelf life. Virtually everything is artificially flavored (natural flavors being considered inferior). Everything seems to be constantly changed and "improved." Not content with the normal cycle of birth and death we are now cloning sheep and mules and whatever. It would be very easy to go on and on with examples of this. I am not suggesting this is necessarily bad (or good), merely that humans seems to be never satisfied with anything.

This includes our own bodies. As far back as we can go it appears that humans have subjected their bodies to modifications of one kind or another. Tattooing is very old. Ear and nostril piercing likewise. Scarification, foot binding, head binding, tooth excisions, circumcisions, subincisions, and other mutilations of the penis, clitoridectomies, lip stretching, cutting off finger joints, shaving, eyebrow plucking, you name it, somewhere humans are doing it (or did do it at one time or another). Some of these practices, having been abandoned for a time, are now making a comeback. Earrings (for men) which disappeared for years are now common. Tatooing which was more or less the provenience of sailors and a few others, is now commonplace. We see more and more instances of tongue rings, lip rings, nose rings, and even eyebrow rings. Nipples are being pierced along with navels and who knows what else. Professional athletes and other entertainers (except golfers who seem to be ultra-conservative) seem to be setting the trends. Now, with improved technologies and methods, we think nothing of breast enhancements (or the opposite), penis enlargements, nose jobs, liposuctions, lip modifictions, and plastic surgeries of all kinds. Women, especially, are almost always dieting whether they need it or not. In short, humans seem to be never satisfied. Indeed, you might say being never satisfied is a defining charcteristic of the species.

I do not bring this up to condemn it, or to praise it. Merely to wonder about it. This appears to be a strange species-specific phenomenon. No other species has anything like it. So what is it about the human species that makes them never satisfied? Perhaps one of the best examples has to do with methods of killing each other. We have certainly made great strides forward in this area. I guess methods of torture have been improved as well but here there seem to be some limitations in what can be done to each other. In this matter we may actually have regressed a bit since medieval times (those guys were really creative when it came to torture, just visit the British museums).

This business of never being satisfied is a difficult thing. For example, in medicine and production and transportation, and material things like that we have indeed made improvements. So I don't think we can say all dissatisfactions are bad. Automobiles are certainly much better than they were fifty years ago, and the same thing is true of refrigerators and such things. So how are we to decide on such things? Shall we just go ahead and proceed with stem cell research, human cloning, and who knows what else the future may bring? Perhaps humans will eventually produce paradise for themselves. I confess it doesn't look too promising at the moment.