The ability to select for danger has an evolutionary advantage. So does the ability to select for love.
It’s not that bad things don’t happen; it’s that not only bad things happen. We need to know what is wrong so we can try to fix it. We also need to know what is right so we know what to keep doing.
The media trades in despair, as though one side of the coin was the whole thing. A fuller picture of reality and humanity would help us remember that many things happen – and some of them are delightful.
Just because it’s easy for us to mobilize around fear doesn’t mean we cannot also choose to mobilize around love. It might feel, in the present state of things, like swimming upstream; and that might make it all the more important.
Here are some antidotes you may not know about:
If autopilot leads to being galvanized by terrible things, and our evolutionary advantage to select for delight, beauty, love and mercy is supressed, maybe we should think about turning off the autopilot.
Today is day 100 and post 100. For those still following along, thank you.
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