Back to Basics or Die!

During the Vietnam War, after the complete destruction of a village called Ben Tre, an American major explained that it had become necessary to “destroy the village in order to save it.”  Angelina Jolie decided to “destroy the village in order to save it” by preemptively having her breasts lopped off to improve her odds of avoiding cancer.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?_r=0

She did it for the kids, and the military at Ben Tre did it to the kids, but the theory is the same: “Something bad is probably going to happen here, someday… so we’d better take care of the situation right now, before there’s a situation.”  The latest example of this theory in action is a plan that’s being floated by some people in Africa to save rhinos from poachers by cutting off their horns before the poachers arrive.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/15/184135826/can-economics-save-the-african-rhino

Many of our choices are fear-driven, and that’s not always bad.  If you don’t pass on a blind curve because you’re afraid to, that’s good.  If you don’t have unprotected sex with the tattooed stranger you just met at the club because you’re afraid you might “catch something,” that’s probably good too. But one of the problems with modern life is that we are conditioned to be afraid always and about everything.  This results in what we call “stress,” and is one of the reasons why life in Twenty-First Century America is so miserable for so many people so much of the time, despite that this is still one of the most affluent societies on the face of the Earth.

In the jungle, your reptilian brain knows good and well that when danger threatens, you have three options: fight, flight or freeze.  Each one of those responses takes a lot out of you, so you only flee, fight or freeze until the danger is past, and then go back to lazing in the sun, peacefully eating bananas, or picking bugs out of your mate’s hairy ears.  In the natural state, animals (including homo sapien sapiens (“wise wise man”—i.e., us…  and do you detect a little note of hubris in the name we’ve chosen for ourselves? ) don’t spend a lot of time worrying about dangers that might, but might not, ever materialize.  Nor do they lie around brooding about the bad times of yesteryear.  They live in the moment, often the formula cited by mental health professionals for achieving “happiness,” even… and perhaps especially… in the midst of all of our Twenty-First Century lunacy.

Of course, we’re a long way from the jungle now, and we’ve also come a long way from our animal roots, at least psychologically.  Physically, though, it’s another matter, and that’s where we really start to run into some trouble.  You see, our bodies are less malleable than our minds, and they (usually) take a lot longer to change.  When you sit around in traffic worrying about Al Qaeda or your retirement, you know somewhere in your thick head that those things aren’t an immediate threat to your safety, and neither is the traffic since it’s stopped.  But your body thinks it’s still back in the jungle where it should be, and it realizes that you’re trapped in traffic where Al Qaeda can get you, and that even if you escape today and make it to retirement age you’ll starve because you haven’t saved the four million you’ll need to survive until you’re super old and the long-term care insurance that you haven’t bought kicks in. (Don’t screw around with those retirement calculators, by the way; they’re very stressful.)  In other words, most of us are ready to fight, fly or freeze most of the time.  The adrenaline is pumping, the heart is pounding, sleep is hard to come by, for an awful lot of people who’ve never even seen a jungle.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response

Which, of course, is one of the primary reasons that we’re so unhealthy.  High blood pressure, heart disease, sleep disorders, problems with the digestive system, and yes, Angelina, even cancer, are associated with stress, which causes inflammation, which in the long-term is associated with just about every bad physical problem that you can imagine.  http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/stress-heart-attack-risk ; http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-stress-feed-cancer. But don’t let that stress you out.

If stress is everywhere, what can we do about it?  Well, going back to the jungle isn’t really much of an option, because most of it has been slashed and burned, and the remainder is full of poachers, anti-government rebels, real estate developers, and a few very angry animals.  But you might try living more like an animal.  In other words, try putting some of the garbage in perspective.