Out with the New.

Let me start by saying this is off the cuff, totally 100% my opinion and thoughts, and where I'm at right now.  It's my observations.  It's my gut feeling.  I may be completely wrong.  Or maybe only a little wrong.  But I may be right.  Or at least some right.  And that is potentially terrifying.

I repeat, this is only a thought experiment, so don't rip me apart or get to upset.  Everyone has a story.  This is just the story that's been playing in my mind lately.

This is like...history for dummies.  I like to keep it simple.  And picture this more like a story.  Like fiction with the possibly of being accurate.

Maybe a tl,dr

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. 

Adam and Eve

If you believe the earth is only 6000 years old and that God created Adam and Eve, this may rock your world and you may not believe anything I say.  If you think God knew the future and knew what we'd get ourselves into and created our brains to handle it, I will disagree wholeheartedly.  I'm sure believing that helps you feel better, it did me at one point in my life.  So I get it.  Really.

Yeah.  I'll start there.  To the best of my knowledge, most major religions started within the past 10,000 years.  Why?  I have a theory.  The Agricultural Revolution happened around 10,000 years ago and I believe it was one of the best worst things that happened to the human race.   Once man learned how to plant and grow his own food, the selection pressure of starvation got smaller and smaller.

Hierarchy of Needs

Assuming he is correct, let's take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  It's a theory of human motivation.  The primary driver for humans is the physiological need.  Survival.  Food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, and sexual instinct.  Yes...humans have a sexual instinct.  It's in our very nature to reproduce.  In fact, that's what our ancestors of yesteryear were born to do.  We didn't always live in houses and have grocery stores.  We weren't always a civilized people. I grew up going to a christian church and I was given the impression that Adam and Eve were the first humans and within a few hundred years there were villages and cities.   There wasn't a lot of human history taught.  In reality, the world is a whole lot older than that and humans hunted and gathered for food.  Staying alive was incredibly hard to do!  Predators, food supply, and climate (yes, even back then but not how it is today) were incredibly brutal to our primal ancestors.  If you were able to stay alive and reproduce, those good genes would continue.

Back to the agricultural revolution.  Humans have been around for several hundred thousand years.  They didn't have methods to plant and grow their own food on a large scale.  They survived primarily in the physiological stage of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  And quite honestly, I believe they may have been happy there.  They didn't know any better.  This was life.  That's all they knew.  We, as 21st century humans,  can't even begin to imagine it.  All our physiological needs  have been given to us since the day we were born.  Well, most of us.  I'm speaking largely to the civilized world and being very general.

What happened once we could plant and grow our own food?  We didn't have to hunt or gather as much so we could spend a little more time securing shelter (onto level 2 on the pyramid), sleeping, playing, and making babies.  Not so bad!  Sounds like fun!  We began to practice more personal security, like having a place of our own.  Perhaps a trading (financial) system was set up.

Ultimately over the next couple thousand years, we crept up the pyramid of needs finding love and belonging.  Having families, rather than communities, and began raising our own.  Friendships and other relationships began.  Towns and cities started to develop.  No longer did you have to keep searching for food, you could grow your own!

Up the pyramid you go and no longer was everyone working as a group, we were now working as individuals.  Which means feelings of self worth and comparison to others came into the picture.  And eventually we began to wonder what our place in this world really was.

Religion

Enter religion.  Mans search for meaning.  For purpose.  We had time to think about things beyond our comprehension.  Why did some days it rain?  Why is it cloudy some days?  Where does the heat go?  What is a day?  What are these feelings?  How does life work?   Why did she ignore my advances? How much screen time should my kids have?  Just kidding about that last one, we'll get there though. Man needed an explanation for the unknown.  He needed answers for the questions that plagued his soul.  Religion, belief in a higher power, belief that something bigger than us is at play can be very peaceful.  It removes us from worrying about it.  It has it's benefits.  I can understand the need for something like this.

It wasn't just one religion, either.  

So what do they all have in common? They all focus on community, group think.  They all have a "do unto others/golden rule" message.  Better to give than to receive.  Peacemaking. Reaping what you sow. Do no harm. Forgiveness. Don't anger.  And so many others.  These are basic "life guidelines".

But what happens when you can't unsee the fact that it's all made up.  What happens when you believe Jesus was a revolutionary person that changed the world, but there was no miracles, no resurrection, and no afterlife.

Pre agricultural revolution we lived in harmony with the world.  Post agricultural revolution we decided to do things our way.  To explain the world and find a reason for how it all works.  We thought it was good.  But was it?

Today

Fast forward to the 21st century.  Our world is a whole lot older than 2000 years.  Older than 6000.  It's millions of years old.  We are but a fragment.  Dust.  Not even a spec.  But our impact now is far greater than we ever could imagine.  We became Gods.  We began doing things as we see fit.

Wars began. Territories were fought over.  Violence ensued.  Governments and political powers came to be.

But I'm not going there.  This time period, despite what we hear, is one of the safest and least violent time periods ever.  But just because we are less violent doesn't mean damage isn't being done.

I don't know any easy way to transition to where I want to go. So I'll just do it.  Try to follow.

Chickens

I live in south-central Pennsylvania.  We have winter here.  Often times it gets cold, really cold.  We had an almost three week stretch where the weather was at or near zero degrees Fahrenheit.  Last summer we thought it would be a good idea to get chickens.  So we did!  The summer and fall were great!  But I knew winter was coming.  And on those cold days I began to worry about those little peckers.  But then I thought, "they're animals, they are supposed to live outside!"  But I had them shipped here.  They aren't local to Pa.  How could I expect them to survive the elements if they were never supposed to?  I couldn't.  I had to get my chickens extra warmth to prevent frostbite and keep them alive.

What's the point?  When we have food accessible to us 24/7, transportation available, and shelter easily made we can travel and live places we were never "designed" to live at.  Just like my chickens.  I put them here.  And in doing those things we are turning on and off certain genes in our body.

Shoes

Lets use another easy example.  Shoes.  Our bodies are perfectly designed to function without cushion and arch support.  The way the foot works with the ankle and leg is amazing.  When we start adding cushion and support we take away from what the foot and leg was created to do.  Those muscles become weaker and weaker and eventually lead to a host of health issues.  And that's just from wearing shoes.  Entire professions are based around the health of the foot.  But you'll maybe fine one in one hundred that suggest less or no shoe being the answer.  Why?

Are shoes useless?  Nope.  We use them for all sorts of things, but mainly they should be used as tools when absolutely necessary.  And those instances should be rare.  Because in the event you realize you may need shoes, you have to ask yourself is the thing you need shoes for even a thing we need to be doing?

Cars

I could say horses.  I could say anything other than your own two feet.  But once we began utilizing something other than our two feet for transportation, we began venturing into something unnatural.  Or maybe just undiscovered.  Now, with planes and even virtual communication.  Distance doesn't hold us back anymore.  It's not a bad thing, or is it?  We really don't know the long term effects of having these advantages.  They may turn out to be a huge disadvantage for human history.

Milk 

We don't need milk. We are the only species on the planet that drinks milk from another species.  You don't see any other animals regularly going around to lactating mothers and having a drink.  But we do?  Why? It began around the start of farming communities.  AKA, the agricultural revolution.  We were never supposed to drink milk.  We do not need it, but were led to believe it "does a body good".  It does.  When it's from your own species and you are an infant.  Not when you are 28 and eating it on your fruity pebbles.

But what economic impact would it have on millions of people if we did away with milk?  It would be horrible for so many.  So we accept milk and the risks that come with it.

The Brain Drain

That's my next theory.  How does all this advancing effect our brains?   Are depression, anxiety, and many other mental illnesses a byproduct of living in the 21st century?  Our brains, hormones and other bodily functions have NO IDEA how to deal with the stuff of todays age that we throw at it.

Just think about the stresses of modern day parenting.  All of that brain activity to just be a parent that wasn't required throughout almost all of human history us hard!  And there almost seems to be a message that if you can't handle it, you must have a problem.

And parenting is just one of many stressors!  Marriage, work, relationships, and so many others pile on. If you start to get anxious or depressed, you are told you have a chemical imbalance and need to take this drug to fix it.  While that may be true.  You may very well have a chemical imbalance.  But it's not cause you are broken.  It's likely happened when we are faced with the daunting task of trying to live in the 21st century.  So give yourself some slack.

Don't get me wrong,  I'm not saying these aren't real problems.  They are!  I've dealt and continue to deal with my own mental battles.  But knowing that my brain was never designed to handle this world has made the process much easier.  It takes the pressure and expectation off of myself.  This is not the world our brains have evolved to live in.

I'm also not saying that parenting causes this.  Not at all!  Although, my symptoms got incredibly worse once becoming a parent.  Being a parent can be an incredibly joyous experience! But the stresses of modern day parenting wreak havoc on our emotions and our brain chemistry!

Facebook Brain

This should need little explanation.  We have no idea the long term implications of the information age.  While you could argue it's nice to know what's going on around the world, we don't need to know.  It's not in our genetic makeup to know what's going on around the world.  And any reason we should need to know what's going on, is a byproduct of something else we probably shouldn't be doing.  

I like to view our brains like I view a computer.  We have long term memory and short term working memory.  You know, the memory that is needed to run several programs at once.  Call it operating capacity if you wish.  

In todays world our brains are expected to function at a maxed out operating capacity.  So many of our senses our firing at one time.  Emotions from all things are flooding in by the minute.  Information is being fed to us from every angle.  Have you ever been trying to catch up on facebook, thinking about that day at work, thinking about your friend with cancer, about what you will make for dinner, the house that needs cleaned, about how you are going to pick up the car from the garage AND pick up the kids from soccer practice, hoping the baby will sleep for at least 10 more minutes, and......the list goes on.  God forbid if another child or something else starts asking you for ONE more thing during this period or you will lose your shit.

Being connected has some necessary benefits, but it comes at a cost.

The Grain Drain 

Another example, everything that is man made that we eat changes the chemical/hormonal balance of our bodies.  We can't keep eating fake, processed food and expect our bodies and brains to be perfectly fine.  And we can't even wait to adapt to it.  Why?  Because big pharma comes up with a drug that you can take to "correct" what ails you.  Type 2 diabetes got you down?  Here, have some insulin.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by a diet that is out of balance with you.  You can prevent it, treat it, and manage it by diet alone.  Type 2 diabetes is also a man made disease.  But don't worry, you don't have to change your lifestyle, you can have this drug.

Why do I bring up Type 2 diabetes?  Because by 2040 it will be the biggest threat to America if people don't clean up their diet.  The total cost of diabetes is 322 BILLION dollars and on the rise.  Follow the money on that one.  If you have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes there is hope beyond medication!  I strongly encourage you to look into it!

Exercise 

If you want to dive a little deeper into this idea.  Could you imagine our primal ancestors all running a 5k before they started eating their fresh kill?  Not a chance!  And it's not because they didn't have enough food that they were skinny.  It's because what they ate was natural to the body's condition.  The fitness AND food industry are making BILLIONS off the idea that you need to exercise to burn off those extra calories.  NEWSFLASH!!!!  It doesn't work that way.  Weight loss and gain starts in the kitchen.  Period.  

Financial Impact

So much of our world today is comprised of things that we were led to believe we need but are absolutely unnatural to the human existence.  And we need to be careful!  Or at least be aware. And I'm worried.

I'm worried because we have trillions of dollars tied up in things that we don't need and may even be harmful to us.  People have built there livelihoods and incomes based on lies.  And I'm not accusing them.  They could have been largely ignorant.

I'm worried for the future of humanity.

Point Being

Almost everything today is unnatural to us.  We haven't had time to evolve and adapt.  And unfortunately we'll never be able to.  Every time we encounter an error or hardship, we invent something to fix it.  But we don't really fix the problem, we just figure out a way to live with the problem.  In fact, we may even be creating more problems for ourselves with each problem we fix!

And most of us don't even realize we are doing it.

Advancement comes at a cost.  But we don't know we are being charged.  And when we finally do get the bill, I'm not certain we are going to be able to pay for it.

Have I gone completely off my rocker?  Well, a rocker is a man made invention.  I was never supposed to be on the rocker in the first place.  So if I fell off, it was my fault for even getting on the rocker.

Jon.  You are crazy.  What the hell are you even talking about?

Nothing today existed 100,000 years ago.  Nothing today existed 50,000 years ago.  Hell, hardly anything that exists today even did 100 years ago.  How do we expect to be able to process all this change so fast?  Can we even handle it?

Long Story Short

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.  I don't know that I have many solutions.  Other than for us to take a good hard look at what we are doing right now and how that will impact the future.  We are guinea pigs.  We've never done this in the history of the world (that we know of).  

Be careful.  Just because it's available to use doesn't mean it's safe nor should be done.

At the end of all this, advancement is good, right?  Is it?  What are we advancing for?  Will we eventually out advance ourselves? A.I. anyone? Will we out advance the earth? Next thing you know they'll be trying to find ways for us to live on the moon!

What are we doing?  We are moving forward with no goal.  No end.  No nothing but doing whatever we think feels good in the moment.  

This blog was also brought to you unnaturally and no human was ever supposed to read it.