The “I am” thought triggered a range of different things, the components upon which modern society today is built on. Incredibly important developments such as language would not have been developed.
A more psychological angle of looking at these ideas is the theory of the “id”. We are basically all born as the “id”, our id is out wild and untamed side. We of course still have our “id” to a certain extent; it has just been tamed by our parents. In times where the “I am” thought had not yet been experienced by anyone, the “id” will have been much more predominant in human society. There was of course no need for it then, because if nobody has perceived their own existence there are no inhibitions. Without a general codex of how to behave in society, nobody will feel the need to. This of course shows that one of the things we have procured from realising our existence is our law system, which is the fundamental thing which makes our society function.
Nowadays, although the “id” is still evident everywhere, we have developed other ways of behaving. Obviously we cannot go through life simply portraying our “Iddish” side; we eventually develop our “Super ego”. The “Super ego” is basically what our “id” is nurtured into. It is our law abiding side, without our “super ego”, we can impossibly be described as respectable members of society. The super ego is basically the superlative of how we should behave; therefore we cannot pretend that we all behave in this fashion. This is where the “ego” comes into it. It is a balance between the two; the “Super ego” and the “id”. The objective of our upbringing is to repress our “Id” and thus feed our “Super ego”.
At the moment, we must remember that we are talking about humans in the distant past that felt this sensation for the first time ever in history. Although we can often not remember ever having felt this sensation, I guarantee that at some point in our life we have experienced the sudden feeling of appreciating that we are alive and thinking independently. I think it is necessary to study this not only from the aspect of our first ancestor to ever have experienced this, but also from the time in our own lives when this happened to us because this is just as relevant and if not even more so. Our society has very specific way of dealing with the “Id”, it is basically just treated as a handicap, infants are given privileges and are aided wherever they go. They are constantly taken care of. We are educated in order to deal with situations sensibly and rationally and this to develop or “Super egos”.
The essential skills needed in order to lead a successful life in this day in age, for example the most obvious of all necessary skills; language.
These days, we are constantly being confronted with language everywhere, written and spoken. It is arguably one of the most essential things for human beings. Our manmade communities are built on the basis of communication and constant interaction. Language has guided us through the entire duration of our history as human beings. As humans have developed over thousands, so has language. This is of course not noticeable in ones lifetime but language does indeed develop and become more complex. Just because language needs to be nurtured, does by no means suggest that it is not in our nature to communicate verbally. It would seem far too excessive to naturally be in possession of a complex voice box and vocal chords simply for the purpose of making primitive noises.
In the past language may not have been as necessary because if we didn’t have anything too complex to communicate then we wouldn’t have needed very complex methods to communicate them. I can expand on this argument using the example of animals; Animals are evidently not as intelligent or as mentally developed as humans, and as a consequence of this they do not have an intelligent language. They simply do not need to convey such complex things to each other.
The animal and the human world are as a result of these differences, worlds apart. Even as I was mentioning before, one of the main criteria’s to be able to classify ones self as an intelligent being is whether or not you have recognized yourself as an existing human being. At this point we must take into consideration whether the “I am” thought is an exclusive factor to the human being. I am fairly confident that the “I am “ thought is exclusive to us, if you observe the differences between man before and after the “I Am” thought, we can see some very significant differences in their behaviour. The “I am” thought is ironically not just a thought that causes us to act in our own interest, it also makes us aware of the existence of other human beings and that they also are capably of thinking like you. It changes the way we interact with other beings. There are some very significant differences between the way animals treat each other and the way humans do. Although we all have our own interests at heart, we still take other peoples needs into consideration.
