My life has been easy. I’ve never been in real physical danger, I’ve never been truly sick, and I’ve never been truly hungry.
But my ancestors evolved in dangerous and difficult conditions, so I have built-in stress reactions and coping mechanisms designed for a human with a tougher life. I have a safe bed and a grocery store with plenty of affordable food, but a body and mind built for primitive survival. My evolution is way behind the times.
So what are comfy humans to do? Well, like prairie dogs in a zoo, still scanning the danger-less horizon, we get stressed anyway.
Look out!! He's right behind you!
Currently, the number one cause of stress in the US is money. This seems strange when you consider how financially well-off Americans are compared to our fellow Earth inhabitants. So I’m willing to bet that if we had unlimited money, we’d find stress elsewhere. We wouldn’t need to look far — we often fret over politics, our jobs, sports, our relationships, the Oscars, our neighbors, Black Friday deals, our pets, traffic, our alarm clocks, the holidays, our clothes, and the number of likes we get on Instagram.
It’s not our fault. It’s in our genes — our evolution. We’re built to face danger and difficulty, and in its absence, we feel unfulfilled. This emptiness is our disease of affluence.
Some treat this disease by creating the perception of danger while remaining relatively safe. Some jump from planes with a parachute, some drive in fast cars with airbags. Some of us practice safe stress by climbing.
Sketch provided by Jackie Niles @idigdirt
Climbers push their physical limits, maintaining intense focus while experiencing sudden bursts of adrenaline. Wouldn’t we have the same physical experience if we were hunting (or being hunted) a hundred thousand years ago? I think that’s the point.
We mimic our ancestral danger and put our oldest instincts to use with sport. We satisfy our deep needs for difficulty. And though we return to our comfy and safe beds at night, we keep some connection to ourselves and to our past. We can sleep soundly knowing: we still are the humans we once were.
Safe and sound