There are many books out there saying they will 'transform your life' and I've
read enough of them to tell you that this little book here is totally
different than all those other books. First things first—this short little
book is basically a summary of Jeremy Griffith's main work on the human
condition— 'FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition'. Jeremy Griffith
is a biologist and the main premise of 'Transform Your Life And Save The World'
is that the world is in crisis and the only solution is to find the scientific
understanding of the human condition. Griffith argues that it's that insight that his
book presents and that every human can now be immediately transformed from
living a psychologically troubled life to living a life free of it and that this
transformation not only saves an individual's life it saves the whole
world! So that's a big claim but let's look at how Griffith supports his
argument. Basically he's saying that humans have used the excuse that we are
competitive, aggressive and selfish because we supposedly have instincts
that make us compete for food, shelter, territory and a mate so we can
reproduce our genes, just like other animals do. But really we humans are a
bit more complex than that. So he goes on to explain that humans have a conscience —
and I don't think that many would argue that humans have inherently good values—
I mean Charles Darwin of all people said that 'the moral sense perhaps affords the
best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals' and to have a
moral code it must have come from our distant ancestors. I mean you can say we
behaved properly because we should but we all intuitively know when we're being
mean or lying or worse, so it does make sense that this sense within us to be
cooperative and loving is true—we're not competitive and aggressive just like
other animals. Griffith then takes us on a massive thought journey to match with
this premise that it's true that our very distant ancestors did live cooperatively
and lovingly is in fact true that as Darwin said our moral sense distinguished
us from other animals. He then goes on to quote many great philosophers, thinkers
and writers throughout history like Plato, Hesiod, Rousseau, Descartes,
Shakespeare, Laurens van der Post, Jung and others to provide evidence that we
really do have a cooperative and loving past. But my favourite part is when
Griffith introduces bonobos—the rare primate living south of the Congo River.
And all these amazing comments of bonobo researchers and filmmakers about just
how loving a species they really are and how bonobos are actually our closest
living relative and I mean it's astonishing and so beautiful given the
fact that I hadn't even heard of bonobos before, let alone Griffith's explanation
for how we humans and bonobos have actually acquired our moral instincts.
I've probably given away too much already because this book is only seventy pages
but since you can you can read it for free on the Amazon Kindle or on
www.humancondition.com—let me tell you just one one last thing—the main difference
between this book and any other book that claims to transform your life or
something along these lines is that this one provides the real
explanation for why we humans are so psychologically troubled as to even feel
the need to become transformed. It explains how an unavoidable clash
between our instincts and our intellect produced all our angers, alienation and
egocentricity. And in the last part of the book it
provides the help as to how these understandings can free ourselves from
all these behaviours and actually transform our lives and save the world.
So thanks for watching and I really hope you liked it and found it useful and
that you'll give 'Transform Your Life And Save The World' a chance because I think
it really deserves your time and I also think you will be astonished just as I
was that this little book actually does what its title says it does. Thank you.