Is "Nest-Building" one of the main human drives that blinds us? (Philosophy)

The theme of tonight's meeting is on the topic of "nest-building". From what I see of society, it seems that the main drive behind human life is to have kids and put your meaning for life into providing the best for them. People are doing this as far as I can see to the exclusion of everything else, but that then begs the question, what is the meaning of life? Is our sole purpose really just to reproduce and propagate the species? Are we being led by the innate drive for species survival?

The topic for tonight's meeting is inspired by the piece "I had a dream last night" taken from Richard Rose's book, "The unpublished works of Richard Rose". He had a very nostalgic dream about being back in an old house he was familiar with, with his ex-wife. They were going about making the place good as it was run down, dilapadated. Richard Rose called it nest-building in the dream, they were going about making it into a comfortable home. Then suddenly he grew very weary. He was 54 when he had the dream and I feel that the message of his dream was trying to communicate to him that the innate drive to nest build, have and provide for family was still quite potent in him. The fact that he got real weary was because he had been through all this and felt the true weight of having to go through this all again, especially at the age of 54, an age where I personally feel would be more conducive to slowing down and reflecting on life rather than getting caught up in it all over again.

For me personally, I felt the pang, tug at the heart of where he was coming from, what the message of the dream was conveying. I am 42 now and I'm caught up in my own family game. I have a lot of good things to say about it because I have learnt/learn a lot from it, it is very insightful, and overall an important part of my path. But I definitely resonated with the message from the dream, I wouldn't like to go through it all again, and what really hit home was the power of the drive to nest build, it is so strong in me I am largely blinded by it.

As life games to play, the family game is one of the sweeter games. The wealth/career game, where folks put all their focus into their career is considered the "empire-building" game. This is the concept taken from Robert S Da Ropp's list of meta life games:

1. The Master Game - Awakening
2. Religion Game - Salvation
3. Science Game - Knowledge
4. Art Game - Beauty
5. Householder Game - Raise family
6. No Game - No aim
7. Hog in a Trough - Wealth
8. Cock on a dunghill - Fame
9. Moloch Game - Glory or Victory

Also the topic brings up the phenomenon of dreams that are trying to communicate a message, bridging the divide from the inner self to the outer self was how Jim Burns put it. What are your dreams communicating to you? Please come along and share your thoughts and ideas about this great heartbreaking topic, look forward to seeing you there.

Thanks to Unsplash.com for the event photo: Photo by Yiju Cheng on Unsplash

Check out the "What we are about" section in the groups' main page for some guidelines we work to adhere to. Meetings are run on the Microsoft Teams platform. Please contemplate the topic in advance of the meeting to get the best out of it and bring your views and convictions to the meeting, if possible have a pen and paper close by to record anything useful that may come up that you resonate with on the night, little things you may want to contemplate further.