I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my ancient ancestors who, thousands of years ago, relieving themselves in the bush, felt a pleasant tingle in their sphincters.
When you read “natural selection”, what traits do you think of? Tall necks allowing giraffes to reach leaves high on acacia trees? Sharp teeth of a lion sinking in to the flesh of a gazelle? Dodo birds being too dumb to make it in the harsh trappings of modernity? Most depictions involve some sort of tragic demise or genetic triumph. Humans highlight clever cognitive abilities such as memory or deduction to explain our primacy on the food chain. We can make tools, kill off competition, create culture to pass down knowledge of which berries to eat and snakes to avoid. Our evolution revolves around avoiding death, and rarely do we talk about promoting pleasure.
That’s no surprise, really. Humans tend to focus on the negative. We’re wired that way. There’s no time to stop and smell the flowers if a saber tooth tiger has clamped its chompers down on your thigh. But in the modern world, where threats are often distal or abstract, this mechanism can be a detriment to psychological health and overall survival. Focusing on the positives may not be our first instinct, but it promotes survival just as much, if not more, as our negative and narrow attention. In that vein, I wonder: what positive traits were “selected for” in human lineage? What scrumptious and joyous affinities enabled our survival? What pleasures define the line from Cro-Magnon to me?
The euphoric release of a shit, for starters. A fondness of fires and family. An awe of nature. These aren’t just added bonuses evolution threw in there on our path to the present. These are survival tactics on par with sharp teeth and good vision. Think of all the smooth-tongued bipeds who couldn’t taste the strawberry’s sweetness! Who couldn’t feel the bliss of being on the same page as someone else! Who couldn’t laugh until it hurt!
Next time you feel something good, acknowledge it’s function and power. Your ancestors passed that onto you, and it made you able to survive and thrive.