The Skewed Formula

It is clear enough that humanity is
still an evolving species for whom it
has taken tens of thousands of years
to recognize the utility in civilization
as co-dependent inhabitants of a planet
whose natural resources are not infinite.
Yet there is the unforgiving and deeply
inherent qualities with which nature
endowed us all, engrained in our very
subconscious; the will to survival and
the territorial imperative, two essential
partners in the formation of our values
not readily surrendered to the greater
wholesale bid to refine our sensibilities
and extend to others the courtesy of
acknowledging their rights to existence.
In the process the lessons of humanity
have succeeded in part within some
segments of enlightened society while
others remain deeply steeped in the
original encumberments functioning
as tribal divisions evading the inner
demand to generosity of spirit in favour
of traditions mandating suspicion, fear
hatred and deadly conflict despite the
opportunities proffered to allay those
emotional spurs to continual adversity.
That which nature designed in mapping
the neural network of the human brain
is a permanent fixture of affliction barely
balanced against human enlightenment.
One an aspiration the other a reality.