I believe the immediate purpose of life is to live-to survive. All known forms of life gothrough life cycles. The basic plan is: birth——maturing——mating——reproducing——death.
    Thus the immediate purpose of human life is for each individual to fulfill his life cy-cle. This involves proper maturing into the fully developed adult of the specie.
    The pine tree grows straight unless harmful influences warp it. So does the human be-ing. It is a finding of the greatest significance that the mature man and woman have the na-ture and characteristics of the good spouse and parent:the ability to enjoy responsibleworking and loving.
    If the world consisted primarily of mature person——loving, responsible, productive, to-ward family, friends and the world——most of our human problems would be resolved.
    But most people have suffered in childhood from influences which have warped theirdevelopment. Hence, as adults they have not realized their full and proper nature. They feelsomething is wrong without knowing what it is. They feel inferior2, frustrated, insecure, andanxious. And they react to these inner feelings just as any animal reacts to any hurt orthreat: by readiness to fight or to flee. Flight carries them into alcoholism and other mentaldisorders. Fight impels them to crime, cruelty, war.
    This readiness to violence, this inhumanity of man to man, is the basic problem of hu-man life——for, in the form of war, it now threatens to extinguish us.
    Without the fight-flight reaction, man would never have survived the cave and thejungle. But now, through social living, man has made himself relatively safe from the ele-ments and wild beasts. He is even learning to protect himself against disease. He can pro-duce adequate food, clothing and shelter for the present population of the earth. Barring apossible astronomical accident, he now faces no serious threat to his existence, exceptone——the fight-flight reaction within himself. This jungle readiness to hurt and to kill is.
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