Today’s finds

Alligator Lizard  tracks

California Towhee tracks

Allen’s hummingbird babies

California Tree Frog

Gray fox tracks

Emotional biology

As a tracker and student of nature (nature being everything) I’m constantly following mysteries and trying to connect everything to everything else.  One such thing is emotion.  When a person understands nature – that is, really can see how things are fitting together and depending on each other, everything starts to makes sense.  Life isn’t random anymore.  Everything anyone does is for a reason.  Also, anything that anything does or has as part of its strategy (antlers on a deer, thumbs on an opossum etc) is all for a very specific reason.  To me though, its the more subtle parts of an organism’s strategies are the most fascinating.  For example, when I go off on a survival trip by myself I get about two hours into it before I’m hit with an intense feeling of loneliness.  Why is this?  Well it makes perfect sense biologically and evolutionarily.  Our strategy is that of a social animal.  Being with people who care about us is the safest place to be and our bodies know that.  Our bodies have been learning these survival skills for millions of years.  They are wired, like all plants and animals for two things: to keep living and to reproduce.

I believe that we should go back to the way things once were when we didn’t have this level of security or comfort.  I think we would be happier if our houses were made of bark and only lasted a year or two before we had to rebuild.  To me, balance is more important than comfort.  What is ironic is that returning to a more “natural” way of life is actually the least natural thing an organism could do.  We have evolved to attain food, security and comfort at all costs.  All of our emotions are weighted towards this.  In today’s world our bodies have figured out that money equals life.  If we loose a thousand dollars we feel it physically.  Our bodies make us anxious and stressed.  We don’t like it.  If we win a million dollars our bodies give us euphoria.  To voluntarily abandon the comforts and security of this way of life is completely unnatural.  No other animal in the history of the earth has done that – chosen to give up security because they have an overabundance of it.

It may be depressing to think that everything we do is because of our biology.  And that may be depressing because believing in our limitless creativity may have been an essential part of our survival strategy.  Either way, I feel drawn to search out the most true answer to what is going on, despite its emotional ramifications.  And I think it is quite possible that there is a greater purpose of our being here, getting to fully experience and explore this fascinating biology from the inside.  And luckily fascination is a wonderful feeling and I don’t think there will ever be a shortage of things that provoke it.

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