By the River of Care
Valdur Mikita
For our ancestors the sky was important, but naturally also the earth. A landscape covered with forest, with villages and strips of fields scattered between bogs and marshes, has always been part of an Estonian’s sense of home. Home is above all the landscape. In this “earth home” live all other beings besides humans, whether above the ground or below it, and also those who hold on with their roots. It can be said even more strongly – the earth is a living being. Home is a form of life – something similar to a hive organism.
“Society is not characterized by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.”
The animistic worldview of a nature people also extends to the landscape. In folk belief, sacred groves, holy lakes or springs could also set out on a longer journey, especially if people had angered them for some reason. This ancient tradition tells about what happens when humans no longer care about those around them.
Why is this strange tradition so meaningful? Because domestic violence is also expressed in violence against nature. Nature is close to humans, and therefore nothing should be taken from it by force. This is a question of philosophical scale – if a person mistreats a forest or a field, should the land be taken away from them? The thought of the American conservationist John C. Sawhill seems fair to me: society is not characterized by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.
One of the most famous Estonian thinkers abroad, the neurobiologist Jaak Panksepp, has also written about caring in detail from the perspective of a brain scientist. Panksepp claims that in the brain of all mammals there exist seven ancient neural circuits that determine the foundation of all their emotional behavior. These are seeking, fear, rage, care, lust, grief and play. These affective pathways are similar in all mammals.
Networks deep in the brain generate primary feelings or primal emotions. They are not rational, meaning they developed before the cerebral cortex, but evolution preserved them in the human brain because they belong to the basic survival equipment. This is radically different from the common view that emotions arise in the more developed parts of the human brain. It is a memory inherited from our ancestors that has helped us survive. As we see, caring and nurturing are one of life’s basic needs.
One of the most amazing research results in this field comes from the laboratory of neuroscientist Michael Meany, where he studied the behavior of rat pups. It turned out that the fact of how much a mother rat licks her newborn pups during the first 12 hours determines the composition of their brain chemicals for the rest of their life. Maternal care changed the configuration of more than 1000 genes, in this way determining the expression of these genes later in life. Rat pups who had felt maternal care were more resistant to stress, less anxious and more confident. Rat pups who had experienced care grew into individuals with a much more stable nervous system.
“Parental love in childhood is the most powerful weapon against mental disorders.”
Since the difference between human and rat is quite small, from a neurobiological perspective almost nonexistent, it can be concluded that gentle touches and parental care in newborn age also bring lifelong benefit to human children. Parental loving care in childhood is the most powerful weapon against mental disorders in later life. Touches are extremely important expressions of parental care. Children who have had the luck to often sit in the laps of mothers, fathers and grandparents grow into good people. And this is also the cornerstone for a person to be able to form normal attachment and sexual relationships later in life. If there has not been enough love, the tendency towards careless behavior towards oneself and towards others increases. From the lack of care, violence tends to develop later.
The world is a complicated place, often we feel that no one is waiting for us, often we feel fear before life. We often think about why there is so much evil in the world. But the real miracle is that there is so much goodness in the world. Despite everything that has happened through the ages, humans have not lost their belief in goodness. And there is one ancient and proven way to take part in the basic values of life – it is to do as much good as possible in one’s life.
History confirms that the greatest good deeds are almost always done by those people who themselves are in difficulty. This is one of life’s great mysteries. When the basic values of life are in place, trials make a person stronger. The more evil there is in the world, the more a person can show their goodness. And where there is plenty of goodness, evil has nothing to hold on to.
The most important thing is to be a good person.