This. In the past few decades we changed completely how we are supposed to live. Our bodies and brains evolved and adapted through thousands and thousands of years. With plenty of outdoor activity, sunlight, bonding in close communities, quiet time to exercise creativity and arts, and specially, the lack of continuous stimuli and artificially induced anxiety and stress of modern world.
> In the past few decades we changed completely how we are supposed to live... outdoor activity, sunlight, bonding in close communities, quiet time
It's more like 100 years for this division.
> continuous stimuli and artificially induced anxiety and stress of modern world
Is anxiety artificial?
400k years ago, humanity emerges. 40k years ago we finish raping and murdering the last of our close ancestors off the face of the earth (Neandertals and Densovians). It's not like we settled down after that. What are the founding stories for Rome: one brother kills another then go one town over a kidnap some wives (rape of the sabine women).
I picked Rome because the Pax Romana was 200 years of peace. ON the back of mass professionalized violence (the Legion). It wasnt exactly a time of ease and abundance out side the select few.
The last dual in America was less than 200 years ago.
2 generations ago you were lucky to make it out of a major war... the ones we have had since have been mild and voluntary.
We live in a time of abundance, ease, and calm in comparison to history.
No bears are going to eat us. No one is going to come in and burn the village down. We're not worried about starving. Or war... the "plague" was a bit upsetting but in the grand scheme of things it didn't kill a lot of us.
Are we supposed to be anxious and stressed for real reasons, are we programed to be that way, and are now freaking out over minor things because we have gotten rid of all the major ones?
Good point! I even think if the anxiety of being observed by a feral animal is the same, psychological and physiological speaking, of being summoned to the director office or waiting for the result of an exam. We live in a much better world today. Maybe our bears, lions and bandits look different now.
> 2 generations ago you were lucky to make it out of a major war... the ones we have had since have been mild and voluntary.
That's only true if you're talking specifically about US-involved wars, from the US side of things. For a lot of people, the Iraq War (for instance) was neither mild nor voluntary.
Strong point I should have made the US/western nature of my comment far more clear.
To expand on what you're saying I think many of people who have lived through those wars would look at our "western" complaints of stress and anxiety as abject nonsense. And thats not to be dismissive of what people "feel" were built in to be hyper on guard based on history.
I have a corollary to this: a lot of people in tech, who are great at their shitty office job, they all have some terrible job in their path that they will happily tell you they never want to go back to.
