ABSTRACT
A General view of human existence reveals fundamental, recurrent patterns similar to those exhibited by all life forms. As infants, we are born into a given society and culture which has its own history, extending into an immense past. Many histories are intertwined. We grow, learning the language and the ways of our society, working, achieving, and surviving, as events permit, in relation to the vicissitudes faced by our society in our time. We establish a career, marry, and have children of our own. We age and die, and the pattern repeats, age after age. Societal forms emerge, involving the use of language and reason in the task of living life; sustaining traditions develop. The world and the society into which we are born existed prior to our birth and will continue to exist after our death. We are born into and take on the language of that culture and its ways—we become what it is and in turn it is expressed through us and other humans like us. We cannot exist without it, nor it without us. Our inner being reflects our experience during these processes.
