C. A. R. E.

What Humans Need to Survive and Thrive

C. A. R. E. = C.onscious A.utonomous R.eciprocal E.xchangean acronym I created out
of the word CARE which is the 5th Emotional Systemalways capitalized to signal that it
is one of the seven critical basic emotional processes that have been evolutionarily built into
all mammalian brains, including those of us humans.
The meaning of the word care as used here comes from one of the latest scientific
disciplines studying the animal brain called Affective Neuroscience which has discovered
and classified the following 7 Emotional Systems in all mammalian brains, in order of their
interdependence beginning with the most primary one underlying all the others, 1.
SEEKING; 2. FEAR; 3. RAGE; 4. LUST; 5. CARE; 6. PANIC/GRIEF (hereafter, PANIC); 7.
PLAY.
CARE is the behavior usually associated with the mother toward her childa tending to a
genetically valuable, dependent being to ensure its survival. We humansboth females and
malesare evolved to CARE. It makes us feel good and happy when we do, and bad and sad
when we dont.
CARE is what keeps our species going. Without it we would be extinct along with the other
98% of species that have thus far evolved and failed to continue themselves. Two of the
foremost scientific researchers in this new field of Affective Neuroscience are Jaak Panskepp
and Mark Solms. These two often work together to examine the effects of compromised
CARE that leads to PANIC, that if not responded to properly leads to depression, that leads to
addictive behavior, that leads to what is going on in the Western Welfare States. That is: a
significant proportion of the population in all age rangessome 20% to 80%!?is struggling
with controlling its negative behavior. That is: substance abuse, under-and-over-eating, crime,
and a host of other self-and-other-destructive behaviors.
Thus, at the core of what the West in general is suffering from, is a disruption or compromise
of its CARE behavior upon which its survival depends. When you break the primordial link
between Parent and Child you have the personal emotional disaster of titanic dimensions
known as the Mental Illness Epidemic (MIE)especially depressionthat we now have in
the Welfare States.
Unfortunately for the Masses (Sheeple) and fortunately for the Power Elite (Wolves), the
MIE is aided and abetted by the psychiatry community after pelf and prestige in cahoots with
the pharmaceutical industry after profits and power. The psychiatric bible, the DSM, is now
in its latest 7th edition with some 700 plus pages of justification for political coercion and the
medicalization of morality.
Back to CARE from carefully cultivated carelessness. Do you? Care, I mean. The particular
care I want to discuss is the non-genetic kind, usually associated with friendship and romantic
love where individuals choose the relationship. Its my observation that many of us lead lives
of compromised care in this area to the point of self-and-other-inflicted damage. We are hardwired to CARE and when we dont get enough of it in the right way we get substitutes for it
that almost always make things worse, even if at first they seem to get better. Need I count
the ways? The litany of self-abuse dominates the popular media: sucide, drug addiction,
brutal crime, sexual obsessionyou know what I meanour failures to create and maintain
meaningful relationships in and out of the family.

When proper care is not forthcoming, Panksepp shows us what he calls PANIC/GRIEF
follows. PANIC is demonstrated must vividly and basically by the cry of the infant for
attentive response. This is the primordial cry for help. Most humans respond to it
instinctively, thank goodnesshowever, most generally do so only if the caller is considered
valuable enough to do so. The research on animals and humans conclusively shows that when
the cry for help is not answered, the organism shrinks into depression as the self-protective
default setting. The life unit shuts down to conserve energy and stay out of harms way. The
SEEKING system is foregone; if virtual substitutes for virtuous relationships are available
drugs, entertainment, food, etc.then the depression can be somewhat managed, but the
person goes into physical and psychic debt to do so, and the loan of life must be repaid at
some date with increasing interest for the time accrued. In other words, a break down
bankruptcymust and does occur.
Our Mental Illness Epidemic is to me clearly a result of our abandoning our need to CARE
and be cared for in real, intimate, human relationships, especially those consciously chosen.
The evolutionary derived CARE system of the human family has been replaced by the
psychiatric and pharmacological Welfare State which plainly cant do the job. Governmental
solutions only add to the problem which of course is what they intentionally unintentionally
are created to do.
Hence, my recommendation of C. A. R. E. : C.onscious A.utonomous R.eciprocal
E.xchange. This is the basis for an evolutionary mature humanity. It goes by the name of the
Free Market and is based on the Non-Agression Principle. I call this kind of consciously
enacted, reciprocal care: Responsible Personal Freedom; and I believe it is the means to
peace and prosperity for most. It is what I am at my best. As for my worsewell, we only
need to took at the Wests Underclass and its Welfare-Warfare State to embarrassingly
and distressingly, know what I mean.
C. A. R. E. is my credo and it has been variously expressed throughout history as Du et Des,
Quid Pro Quo, Tit for Tat, The Virtue of Selfishness (Ayn Rand), and Altruistic Egoism (Hans
Selye). It can be summed: I care for you and I hope you will care for me in return. Lets each
freely trade our self-value for the others in order to increase both. Simple? Yes. So why dont
we do it. Ah, good and leading question!