On Serving

Every summer for school we have summer reading books. Usually there's one required book, and then a selection of books that you have to choose from for others.
This past year, the required reading was Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. In the book, Quinn suggests that humans society is on its way to destruction. Not because the world is living wrong or because of corruption, but rather because human society shouldn't exist.

The idea is that our ancestors (think: african tribes before europe divided it up like a pie) lived in harmony with nature, following the natural laws of only taking what you need to survive, letting death run its course, etc.
Then he re-interpreted Genesis to be the point where humankind ceased being hunter-gatherers, and became agrarian (farmers). When this happened, we stopped being at one with nature because we started doing things like hoarding food, cheating death with medicine, reproducing wildly due to our ability to grow surplus food... eventually we built society, and now we ravage the earth's natural resources and are on our way to oblivion.

Now, i liked some of the issues Daniel Quinn brought attention to, but his whole extrapolation is more-or-less ridiculous.
I don't think that humans were ever "in harmony" with nature, other than in the garden of Eden. And i don't think that, under our societal coverings, we're anything remotely like our animal friends.

See, i was thinking a little bit, and i think that one thing that separates us from them wild animals is this: The need to Serve.
You could change the name to the need to have a purpose. But i like the need to serve better.
Think about it. Everyone serves something.
Slaves serve their masters.
Peasants served their dukes and earls by working their land to the bone.
Communists serve the state.
Workaholics serve their jobs.
Students serve their schoolwork.
Americans serve themselves.
Perhaps the only people who don't serve anything are the 20-somethings who still live with their moms and have no jobs, and whose entire existence consists of getting up at 1:30 and watching old episodes of Lost until they get tired, and then going back to bed again.
And that's just depressing.

See... people without purpose get depressed. They get restless... they find that they have a need to find that purpose and go serve something.

That's what separates us from dogs and cats and 3-toed sloths.
Sure, you might say that dogs "serve" their masters.
But that's not true; dogs are only capable of existing.
They might have emotions, they might be capable of reasoning, but they still only follow their instinct. Which is to survive.
When you train a dog, you teach to its instinct. It learns to do things that get it doggie treats or pats on the head, because food and interaction are part of existence; part of survival. So it does what its trained to do, because of the natural instinct to survive.

Humans, on the other hand, are more than capable of going against that natural instinct.
We have all sorts of eccentric millionaires that break the mold on purpose; we insist on living in new england and canada and alaska even though it goes entirely against the natural instinct to not be freezing cold in the winter. Birds migrate; we don't.

What i'm trying to say here, is that we're different from animals; one of the ways that we differ is in this need to serve.
And that's one of the reasons why Christians are, generally, happier, more content, and more at peace than nonchristians. We have a purpose; we have someone to serve who is infinitely larger and more important than anything on the earth.