Explain It Like I'm 3: The Sad Chimp On The Cover

Fair warning: this one's just a funny moment, not a deep dive. I hope it gives you as much of a chuckle as it gave me!

I was nearly done with Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan, a pick for my sustainability book club, and was squeezing in some reading between 6:00 a.m., when I wake up, and 6:30, when my 3-year-old does. 

That morning, he opened his eyes, looked at me and the book, and suddenly said, "Daddy what's that??"

I shut the book to see what he was looking at. It was the cover:

Until then, I'd glanced at the cover and figured I got the gist: "We haven't evolved that far past being chimps, despite all we have." And that was it.

My son, being 3, wouldn't understand evolution, or how we got to our current level of technology, or even what a chimpanzee is. So I gave him a simple answer: "It's a monkey! Maybe a chimpanzee?"

To which he asked, "Why is he sad?"

I wasn't quite sure how to answer in a way a 3-year-old would understand. After a few seconds, I decided to wing it.

"He's sad because…he has so many nice things…Nice, fancy clothes. Some fast food that he bought…some sparkly soda in a can…He even has a smartphone for watching Netflix or YouTube or something…But he realized that even though he has so many nice things, those things aren't making him happy in life, so he's sad."

I've read enough sustainability material that none of this is new to me - we've become inundated with material things that promise us happiness and connection and fulfillment, but provide none of it. Somehow, explaining it to a 3-year-old felt oddly profound. He has no idea why any of it matters, he has probably never thought about the meaning of happiness, and yet he probably gets more joy from lobbing a toy dinosaur off the sofa into the TV than I do in a typical full week of life (raising kids is fun).

I had to take a moment. That was, uncomfortably, a pretty accurate description of us: monkeys with fancy technology that makes us sad.

I sat there pondering in silence.

My son sat there in silence too, for about 10 seconds…Before…

"Daddy…?"

"...Yes?" I answered, thinking I was about to get some kind of simple-yet-profound 3-year-old wisdom.

"...Can I play with easter eggs now?"

He had spotted a bag of plastic easter eggs stored in a closet, saved to be used again next year.

I took another moment to ponder the absurdity of the conversation I was having with a 3 year old, then just laughed and said, "Sure."

So much for the existential reckoning. Apparently the antidote to civilizational despair is something as simple as a bag of plastic eggs. Don’t think too deep, enjoy the small things in life. He may only be three, but he may be onto something.