In part two I wish to formulate some basic concepts of human awareness. Each chapter will seek to define a separate concept. In no way do I wish it to be thought of as complete or the only possible division of basics. I offer it as an aid to the art of personality development. I have endeavoured to make it simple and direct with a demand that it always be based on fact. It is a personal concept which could point each reader toward his own individualised concept, tailor-made to the demands of his own needs and character.

The search for some of the basic principles of living which help us understand and cope with the stresses placed on us in the changing world is a rewarding one. We will need all the help we can get from the knowledge gained by psychologists of all branches and related subjects. Indeed my personal philosophy has largely grown as a result of such study and application.

For this chapter I have purposely selected two historical events which some may even consider horrible I have done so because they dramatically illustrate our basic human nature. So let us look at some of the basic emotional ingredients of the homo sapiens, that we can get closer to an understanding of what drives us to be what we are. The strongest human instinct is to survive. We call it the 'wish to live' drive. This wish was tragically demonstrated in the Nazi gas chambers of the last world war, when groups of hundreds of naked people were gassed at a time. After the horrible deed was over and the fans had dispersed the poisonous gas, the bodies of the victims were found to be gathered into pyramids. They had literally climbed upon their fellow victims for just one more breath of life. They were citizens who had been progressively robbed of privilege, property, friends and finally dignity. So steep and unrelenting was their destruction that they could not believe what was happening to them. They were ordinary people like any one of us but subjected to a barbaric doctrine.

We see another tragic survival scene in the sad story of the Ik people, who were located near Mt. Morun-gole between Uganda and Kenya. The story is told by the antropologist Dr. Cotin Turnbull in his book "The Mountain People". He lived among these people who were literally dying of starvation and had been in that condition for years.

The Ik people were originally hunters and gatherers like other tribes of Africa, but had been forcibly removed to a reserve and forbidden to hunt. Deprived of their hereditary hunting ground and of their understood way of life and tradition, their society deteriorated into one of basic survival for existence.

Tumbull states "there is one common value apart from language to which all Ik holds tenaciously:— food. It is the one standard by which they measure right and wrong, goodness and badness . . . Each person forages for himself and himself alone. The sick, old and weak are left to starve and die." He tells of the old literally having the food snatched from them as they were putting it into their mouths. Children were left ro forage for themselves from three years old.

Tumbull describes them as a society without love, uncaring, cruel, grasping, vicious. "The young seemed uninterested even in sex, let alone marriage and the old were as uninterested in the young as their children were in them."

Word pictures similar to the following are repeated throughout the book. "Lolin the ritual priest, refused shelter by his son, staggers off to die alone on the barren rocky mountain side," and about another man "He lay down to die after pleading for some water to drink. His wife was off trying to gather enough food to keep herself alive."

Yet Turnbull did learn from a few of the older people that the tribe formerly had social rules, customs and rites governing birth, puberty, marriage and burial. They had laws governing kinship and punishment for anti-social behaviour, herbal remedies and religious beliefs. In other words they had formerly been a typical African society with a well formed culture.

As the need for survival intensified, the cultural structure collapsed progressively until there was no law, no code of ethics, no moral standard, no value except food. Each individual relentlessly and at all costs pursued the path to survival.

Yet in this impoverished and bleak society certain minor co-operating groups were formed- The adults made reciprocal obligatory favours to each other. The object was always self gain. They built up repayable favours as security against future needs. There was never a suggestion of an ultruistic act.

In our comfortable surroundings we feel secure and different from those victims of inhumanity. Our material situation is vastly different. As human beings, however, there is absolutely no difference between us. We are all driven by the same needs and desires. At the very base of each one of us, there is a ruthless drive to live. Overlaying this desperate survival instinct is a willingness to reciprocate with our fellows in social interchange for personal gain.

As we examine the deterioration suffered by the Ik people and in our minds, reverse the process we will find that the basic drive 'I want to live' is progressively overlaid with forms of cultural behaviour and belief along the following lines:

I have illustrated this by the use of the pyramid below. Each of the nine steps are separate and should be read from the bottom upwards.

Art Creativities
Adventure groups, sport
Government and social laws
Beliefs, traditions, group work
Care of wider social group, trading
Care and grooming of immediate families
Reciprocal interchange for one's personal gain
I want to live, ruthless, individual survival need

The first step towards culture after survival is a willingness to accept responsibility for reciprocal inter' change for personal gain. We would then move to caring and grooming of the immediate family. Family trust and grooming would be extended progressively to a wider circle until it included the tribal affiliation. Laws, beliefs, traditions and respect for personal propperty would be added. We would find a general acceptance of punishment for those who did not comply with the reciprocal standards of the society. Rituals of initiations such as marriage would appear with formal ceremonious activities. Finally we would have adventure, creativity and art. It would thus constitute a coherent society with all the beliefs, laws, traditions and customs which provide the culture of the group.

Man builds a social membership to gain security, social grooming and finally adventure and creative expression as in art- This can only be developed when there is an orderly secure base to operate from. It is only after survival is assured that we progressively become concerned with the quality of life-

As we put value on the social and cultural overlay of our basic drives, so we improve the quality and comfort of living. We become law abiding, honest, reliable and trustworthy because we gain by being members of a law abiding, honest, reliable and trustworthy society. This applies to all societies whether it be the Eskimo of the frozen north, the hill tribes of tropical New Guinea or the relaxed Fijian society of the central Pacific. Unless there is a willing acceptance and honouring of the obligations of reciprocal interchange and cultural attainments there is chaos.

So let us not deceive ourselves about love for our fellow man. There will always be the basic primitive survival force within us, sleeping quietly while all is well and comfortable in our surroundings. Immediately danger threatens, it will reappear in all its single mindedness. Each of us is always concerned firstly and principally with himself. It is only when we accept ourselves for what we are, that we can move on to a "fitter understanding of ourselves and finally be person we would like to be.