‘Normal’ Is Not Natural

‘Normal’ Is Not Natural

How the normalized human experience has become completely unnatural

When you bike instead of drive, you start to notice a lot more about your neighborhood: shops you didn’t realize were there, some cool wall art or flower patches you hadn’t noticed, or how much litter is all over the place. One of the things I noticed recently has really gotten on my mind: how many birds and animals get hit by cars every day. Every day I find at least one more bird, mongoose, or cat that got killed.

That leads me to think about how unnatural the lives we live are.

We drive cars that go 65 miles an hour.

In the natural world, big things move slow: elephants, whales, rhinos, or cows. Sure, there are some exceptions (sharks can be pretty quick when they want to be), but in general, big means slow. And most other natural beings like birds and other wildlife aren’t really well suited to live in a world with 1 ton, 65mph speeding, metal tanks. They haven’t adapted to something that big moving that fast. So they get hit. Big things aren’t supposed to go that fast. Humans aren’t supposed to go that fast.

Think about how much we’ve normalized ‘unnatural’

These days, if you live in a moderately wealthy country, you’ve probably been raised with at least one car in the garage. Driving 10 miles to work or school is completely normal to most of us (Actually, the national average commute is ~16 miles!). But think about how unnatural that is: no other living thing on this planet commutes 10 miles a day back and forth. It’s not at all something we’re ‘supposed’ to be able to do. Naturally, we’re supposed to live in smaller communities that may travel a ways on foot to gather or hunt food, but for 88% of the US population to be jumping into a car, using controlled explosions of gasoline so we can move 65 miles an hour and go 10 miles a day to and from work is actually pretty crazy. And really unnatural. And yet we consider it to be normal.

Technology enabled

The only reason for a lot of the way we live these days is because technology enables us to do it: we couldn’t work 10 miles away if we didn’t have cars that allowed us to do it. We couldn’t eat a lot of the foods we cook without supermarket chains that use networks of transportation to move food all over the planet. We couldn’t communicate with our family on the other side of the country if we didn’t have cheap, pocket computers that communicate with satellites and send images of us in milliseconds across the globe.

I’m not saying we need to abandon all technology and go back to living like we did in the stone age, but I am saying we need to take a hard look at our own lifestyles and think about the fact that for every convenience that technology affords us, there are people that suffer proportionately: the more we burn gasoline in our cars, the more we drive climate change causing more extreme weather events and heat-related illness. The more we buy foods from across the globe, the more we support massive transportation networks that pollute the entire way. The more electronics we buy, the more we use copious amounts of valuable metals taken from often-exploited laborers in poor countries.

Someone somewhere always has to pay the price for our convenience.

So what can you do?

The good news, is we can think about the opposite side of this coin: if more convenience means more suffering, then you should be able to directly reduce suffering of others by accepting a little less convenience in your life.

And I know, for most people, they think “less convenice? No way, I want MORE convenience! I’m already too busy!” I get it. I’m with you. But I’ve also recognized that my convenience means more suffering for someone somewhere else, so I’m a lot more careful about when I accept convenience. Do I REALLY need a smart coffee maker? Is the convenience of that smart coffee maker going to be worth the suffering that comes with the extra microchips, computer hardware, and electricity generation they need to make it? Probably not. (Not to mention I really love my moka pot. <3)

What’s more, I’ve found that less convenience can lead to more happiness and life satisfaction. Biking to work has made me healthier and happier than I’ve been in a long time. Sure, it takes more time. Sure, it’s less convenient. But I’m polluting less, feel healthier, and better about my life. To me, that’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

So I hope from here on out you spend a little bit of time each day just being mindful of the things in your life that are really unnatural, not when compared to humans, but when you compare to the behavior of all life on earth. Forget what is normal. Start thinking about what is natural.

Thanks for reading!