hard life
It’s been a long time. But I’m still alive and I’ve been keeping up to date for the most part.
Humans, as the dominant life form on the planet, have evolved from a distinctly unpleasant past. our ancestors lived in the trees, giving them a spectacular strength and dexterity that our best athletes would envy. their progeny, the first true bipeds, and arguably the most physical of the apes in our line were drastically more physical than we. fossil studies show that Neanderthals had broader shoulders, thicker bones, and stronger builds in general than later human species. The original homo sapiens were amazingly tough, agile and resilient. the ancient Greeks, arguably the greatest warrior culture in history were such fierce fighters that a handful of Greek soldiers repelled a force many times their size, making them lose all taste for battle. the samurai of feudal Japan lived for the sole reason to fight and serve their masters, and it was said that even after being beheaded, a samurai could still perform one more action with certainty, even striking down his executioner.
Modern humans, thought far more intellectual than our club wielding ancestors, have grown immeasurably soft. A thousand years ago there was no diabetes, no anxiety medication, no allergy pills. We didn’t have therapists and life coaches, personal trainers or investment bankers. nobody worried about the latest blog or what the 24 hour news channel said about the latest reality star hack. we have ceased to evolve. we have, in fact, began to reverse the process. congenital birth defects can be cured, teeth can be straightened and replaced, tumors can be excised and body fat liquefied and sucked out through a tube, we can look younger longer and live well into our 80s and 90s.
we have ended the species and don’t even know it.
the human body has evolved through millennia of suffering, hunger and turmoil, it is designed to work harder on less, to fight until it simply fails and the organism dies. humans can survive on shockingly little sleep, minimum food and outstanding stress, and yet we have surrounded ourselves with every thing we don’t need to survive. we live sedentary lives while we bemoan our declining health, and the world we have created has let us do it. our lives revolve around a computer screen and a cubicle with a swivel chair. our ancestors stopped moving only to eat and sleep, and we have delivery pizza. the hunter-gatherers could feed an entire village with their own hands, and we throw out milk that we think might smell a little funny. if the first humans got sick one of two things happened: the recovered or they died. today we have ADD, Anxiety, anorexia and a host of other diseases that we evolved right into and self medicate ourselves into oblivion to try to treat ourselves. we have crack, heroin, meth, adderol, zanax, cialis, viagra, cocain and LSD. 25 year old are on life long medication for hypertension, 6 year olds are morbidly obese and the nation we live in is alright with this.