Monday, 9.46pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. – Oscar Wilde
As I looked around for quotes to start this post, I assumed that they would clearly think it was a bad thing.
I was wrong.
The human brain, I am beginning to believe, is not constructed to cope with having too much.
It wasn’t a problem we found in nature so we just didn’t evolve to deal with it.
Nature, in its randomness, has no plan for us, no expectations, no requirements.
We evolved in a world where each creature’s survival depended on a balance – one that it found in its environment with other creatures and living things that also tried to survive.
Human beings, with their big brains, are the only creatures to break that link and decouple their ability to gather resources from the rate at which those resources occur in nature.
We can force food to grow, animals to multiply and make the things we need rather than waiting for them to grow or finding them on the ground.
So our problems now stem from having too much of everything.
We have non-communicable diseases or lifestyle diseases.
Which is a nice way of saying we eat too much of the wrong things.
We have stresses brought on by working in a made up system for made up things.
But at least some of those things are real.
My children are desperate to acquire imaginary things in imaginary worlds for imaginary money – for which they have to spend real time.
I don’t know where this leads other than a world where many people are unhappy and sick and don’t know how to change things.
And one reason for that is because money is the measure of things – if it doesn’t make money it’s not worth doing.
Although, there are some people who think differently.
They try and eat thoughtfully, create businesses that build communities, and share resources, such as with the Free software movement.
They’re the ones who’ll be first up against the wall if the people with money and power have their way.
But, there’s a certain natural selection that happens.
People with power and money don’t like to share so there will always be less of them.
It’s like that thing about carnivores and herbivores. Although plant eaters are seen as weaker they vastly outnumber the predators.
But in our world the predators have found that it’s easier to make the prey sick – that way they stay under control and also you make money from the medical bills.
Is that too cynical?
It is. No one is smart enough to invent such a system of control and rewards.
It’s happened by accident, just like everything else with evolution.
This blog is about making good choices.
Start with making good ones about your health.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 