Balancing Modern and Primal Living

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We live in a time where you can walk barefoot, pick grass, and enjoy the sun, or spend hours of your day interacting with an AI chat bot. Imagine equating the timeline of history to a calendar year. The emergence of the first matter, 13.8 billion years ago, would take place on January 1st. The dinosaurs would go extinct somewhere in mid December. Lastly, modern human history would begin on the very last day of the year, just seconds before midnight. There is no way of declaring this perfectly accurate, however, it serves as a rough representation as to how recent the history of Homo Sapiens really is. While it seems long ago since we lived like primal humans, it is incomprehensibly longer to the origin of the universe itself. Given this timeline, we have made an astounding amount of progress since the birth of our species, specifically when we developed cognitively 50,000-70,000 years ago. If you look at the way humans were programmed, there seems to be a few things left out in modern day living. So how do we implement daily reminders of our ancestors while enjoying our vast variety of modern luxuries?

Embracing Ancestral Living

The fast pace, high tech lives we live makes it hard to stop and appreciate the luxuries our ancestors never had. Early humans were nomads. Their lives revolved around food, shelter, and tribe(family). There was no option to come inside when it was cold. There was no comfy bed with 6 layers of blankets to sleep at night. A good day for them was a killed buffalo and a fire to keep warm. Oddly enough, it didn’t take anymore than that to make them happy. Sadly for them, those same challenges awaited them the next day. Lucky for us, we can live everyday without a second thought on how to attain these vital human resources. In theory that makes us lucky, but what if we are missing some of these challenges from modern living? How could we as a species go from constant fight for survival, to autonomous, easy-living creatures?

What Are We Missing?

We spend so much time occupied with screens and media that we are actually uncomfortable being bored. In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter states, “For 2.5 million years, or about 100,000 generations, we had nothing in our lives. Now the average person spends 11 hours and 6 minutes a day using digital media.” Lots of people say they have their best thoughts in the shower. It is fair to assume that is because it is the only time of the day where our brains are actually bored and not bombarded with stimulus. Many of us sit at a desk for hours on end whereas our ancestors barely sat at all. There were no back problems thousands of years ago, and if there were, it was often from something traumatic and possibly fatal. The options were stand or squat. Yet, we sit more than those two things combined. Processed calories are abundant and convenient in our lives. The primal hunter-gatherer ate nutrient dense, protein rich meat, and maybe some berries if he got lucky. We have air-conditioning and heating units. Early humans had fire and well, nothing to keep them cool. They didn’t have lightbulbs to stay up until 2 AM. When the sun when down, the day was over until the next. Their circadian rhythms were perfectly programmed with the natural cycle of the sun. So how do we optimize our modern lives by reinstating some of these foundational ways of living? Here are some ideas:

• Early morning sunlight exposure

• Sauna and Ice bath

• Short walk with no phone

• Physically Challenging Workout

• No phone before bed

• Prioritize meat and fruit in your diet; eat foods with no ingredient list

• Bond with family

Bridging the Gap with Modernism

While it is beneficial to incorporate some primal into your life, it is unrealistic to not be excited about the modern world and the future of technology. Nuclear fusion, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology are all on the cusp of major breakthrough. Global communication has never been easier. You can make a living creating 10 second Tik Toks. You can sell digital pictures of monkeys (NFTs) for $100,000. You can drive a car that almost drives itself. The list goes on. All of these things were unimaginable even hundred years ago, let alone thousands. The unbelievable part about human progress is that the unimaginable becomes the norm instantaneously. Time and time again, humans find a way to adapt to change fluently and quickly. For example, ChatGPT, the AI chatbot recently made its debut on the public stage. It works well enough to write essays for students. Within weeks, a Princeton student created an app that detects ChatGPT plagiarism. Another example, the IPhone. Most people carried around a Blackberry or some other form of flip phone, but when we were introduced to a new digital interface, nobody has batted an eye or looked back since. Humans have come so far that we stand as a threat to ourselves. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari utters “once technology enables us to re-engineer human minds, Homo Sapiens will disappear, human history will come to an end and a completely new kind of process will begin, which people like and me cannot comprehend.” If there is one constant in history, it is change. Therefore, the best way to balance primal and modern living is to enjoy the best parts of both. It is not worth being a caveman who is naive to the fact that we have really fucking cool technology. It is also not worth spending everyday attached to your phone, not experiencing life. So maybe after you send your friend some Bitcoin, you can go eat some meat. After you finish talking to ChatGPT, go take an ice bath. If you finish reading about nuclear fusion and how we might be able to recreate star-like energy on Earth, go ground yourself and take a nice family walk. You are just a Jedi trying to balance the forces of the two.

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