Survival of the fittest?
I think about things like evolution.
I believe in evolution. It makes sense to me that biological organisms develop or shed traits that either serve or do not serve the species over time. Genes, and their mutations, carry the characteristics that are the tools of survival. The best of these tools improve with use over time. They have to improve or else the species weakens and, eventually, goes extinct. That’s natural selection.
But we tricky humans have been slowly segregating ourselves from nature. Living in houses increasingly insulated from the earth, inventing ever more sophisticated machines to do our work for us, building cities out of concrete and metal, we use mostly synthetic materials, made in labs and factories, in our day-to-day existence, further insulating ourselves. So far from nature are we that we don’t even remember how to stay alive within it. We don’t know what to eat, what plants and animals are beneficial or dangerous, how to shelter ourselves from the elements. Even though we are animals, ourselves, we have no idea. It’s an alien planet, our home.
Our bodies? Just as foreign to us. Most of us don’t keep our muscles conditioned; being at the top of the food chain, we don’t need to use them to escape death on a daily basis. No need to outrun natural predators, hunt, climb, jump, swim, throw or catch, like other animals do to live. Only the few of us who are athletes are physically up to par. We no longer have the ultra-sharpened senses our ancestors did, to see and hear movement, smell threats, taste poisons. Our well-being doesn’t hang on our having these skills anymore, so our physical abilities have dulled. We vicariously watch other, fictional people do made-up things on TV, in movies. We are gradually becoming atrophied, fat and lazy. The less we do, it seems, the less we want to do.
And our brains...constant rapid-fire stimuli is decreasing our capacity to sustain our concentration. Or to process meaning: there’s no time. The next thing is already in front of our faces. Relying on computers to do math, spell and check grammar, or find directions, who needs to know how to figure out tips, balance checkbooks, spell, write sentences, or read maps? We no longer need to burden ourselves with developing our mental acuity; we have machines to take care of that for us.
So...we’re losing our physical abilities, and our mental abilities, because we’ve built safe little environments with mechanizations to do all of our work for us. (Not that I’m advocating the opposite—I don’t want to hide from wolves as I hunt for my food, either.) So why the hell are we here? To play? Buy things? Have fun all the time in a perpetual childhood? Are we screwing up evolution, by slowly becoming softer and more stupid as a species? Are we going to enter the Dark Ages again? Or further, do we have to ponder the possibility of our own extinction? We may not have to worry about natural predators anymore, but the preponderance of our pollution, global warming, diseases, neuroses, and high-tech, global-scale wars amongst ourselves would do the job quite effectively.
Just what kind of human culture are we crafting? We really have to stop and imagine the long-term effects of it, in terms of evolution. Even though we’ll all be long dead and venerated, or maybe forgotten, by our descendants. Let’s not turn all of our functioning over to our iPhones or iPods or iAnything. Let them be fantastic tools, but never a crutch. And do not let our kids live technology as a lifestyle, for the love of humanity. The day we all just sit plugged into our electronic playthings and cease to function entirely is the day that we blip ourselves right out of existence. Maybe not today, maybe not in five, ten, fifty years, or even in any of our lifetimes, but in evolutionary terms, someday, we may not be able to do anything but sit and stare if we don’t have the devices we’ve made clutched in our little paws.
So let’s remember math, grammar, how to whittle, how to sew, how to tie a square knot, how to spot poison ivy and get water from a cactus. Play chess, learn archery, do crossword puzzles to stimulate our gray matter. Run, climb, jump, swim, bike, play tennis—anything to keep our muscles taut and alive. And wouldn’t it be better to do it outside, in nature, breathing fresh air instead of other people’s sweat in a gym (I’m just sayin’...)? And pass on all of this to the next generation, who sorely need to learn it and pass it on to their next generation.
Because what if our lives really did depend on these things?
I believe in evolution. It makes sense to me that biological organisms develop or shed traits that either serve or do not serve the species over time. Genes, and their mutations, carry the characteristics that are the tools of survival. The best of these tools improve with use over time. They have to improve or else the species weakens and, eventually, goes extinct. That’s natural selection.
But we tricky humans have been slowly segregating ourselves from nature. Living in houses increasingly insulated from the earth, inventing ever more sophisticated machines to do our work for us, building cities out of concrete and metal, we use mostly synthetic materials, made in labs and factories, in our day-to-day existence, further insulating ourselves. So far from nature are we that we don’t even remember how to stay alive within it. We don’t know what to eat, what plants and animals are beneficial or dangerous, how to shelter ourselves from the elements. Even though we are animals, ourselves, we have no idea. It’s an alien planet, our home.
Our bodies? Just as foreign to us. Most of us don’t keep our muscles conditioned; being at the top of the food chain, we don’t need to use them to escape death on a daily basis. No need to outrun natural predators, hunt, climb, jump, swim, throw or catch, like other animals do to live. Only the few of us who are athletes are physically up to par. We no longer have the ultra-sharpened senses our ancestors did, to see and hear movement, smell threats, taste poisons. Our well-being doesn’t hang on our having these skills anymore, so our physical abilities have dulled. We vicariously watch other, fictional people do made-up things on TV, in movies. We are gradually becoming atrophied, fat and lazy. The less we do, it seems, the less we want to do.
And our brains...constant rapid-fire stimuli is decreasing our capacity to sustain our concentration. Or to process meaning: there’s no time. The next thing is already in front of our faces. Relying on computers to do math, spell and check grammar, or find directions, who needs to know how to figure out tips, balance checkbooks, spell, write sentences, or read maps? We no longer need to burden ourselves with developing our mental acuity; we have machines to take care of that for us.
So...we’re losing our physical abilities, and our mental abilities, because we’ve built safe little environments with mechanizations to do all of our work for us. (Not that I’m advocating the opposite—I don’t want to hide from wolves as I hunt for my food, either.) So why the hell are we here? To play? Buy things? Have fun all the time in a perpetual childhood? Are we screwing up evolution, by slowly becoming softer and more stupid as a species? Are we going to enter the Dark Ages again? Or further, do we have to ponder the possibility of our own extinction? We may not have to worry about natural predators anymore, but the preponderance of our pollution, global warming, diseases, neuroses, and high-tech, global-scale wars amongst ourselves would do the job quite effectively.
Just what kind of human culture are we crafting? We really have to stop and imagine the long-term effects of it, in terms of evolution. Even though we’ll all be long dead and venerated, or maybe forgotten, by our descendants. Let’s not turn all of our functioning over to our iPhones or iPods or iAnything. Let them be fantastic tools, but never a crutch. And do not let our kids live technology as a lifestyle, for the love of humanity. The day we all just sit plugged into our electronic playthings and cease to function entirely is the day that we blip ourselves right out of existence. Maybe not today, maybe not in five, ten, fifty years, or even in any of our lifetimes, but in evolutionary terms, someday, we may not be able to do anything but sit and stare if we don’t have the devices we’ve made clutched in our little paws.
So let’s remember math, grammar, how to whittle, how to sew, how to tie a square knot, how to spot poison ivy and get water from a cactus. Play chess, learn archery, do crossword puzzles to stimulate our gray matter. Run, climb, jump, swim, bike, play tennis—anything to keep our muscles taut and alive. And wouldn’t it be better to do it outside, in nature, breathing fresh air instead of other people’s sweat in a gym (I’m just sayin’...)? And pass on all of this to the next generation, who sorely need to learn it and pass it on to their next generation.
Because what if our lives really did depend on these things?
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