The evolutionary auto-pilot

Part 1: Controlling my desires? WTH for? 

So many (most?) philosophies and religions want us to “control” our desires. They argue that being free of desires is the key to long-term happiness (whatever that means).

 

That’s nothing new. In fact, if anything, it’s a super old concept.

 

I get why it would possibly work, but until very recently, this concept never appealed to me. I couldn’t understand the point of not having desires, which I think are a beautiful part of life. Although, of course, I did recognise the destructive, never-ending side of our desires. 

 

In part out of intellectual curiosity but also to see whether this could help me overcome my dark nights of the soul, I did try to teach myself to overcome my desires. What I found, however, is that I was teaching myself to be indifferent, which is something that I hated. I couldn’t see the point of going through life feeling indifferent. I might as well not be around. 

 

To be fair, I’d never read much about it or gone in depth into the question. I was mostly picking up on the concept of “controlling my desires” and applying it how I guessed it made sense to do so. 

 

I recently read a book on Stoicism, however, that helped shed much needed light on this idea. For the first time, I could understand the appeal because I understood the deeper concepts behind it. 

 

So why should I, Charlotte, learn to control my desires? 

 

Two words: evolutionary autopilot. 

 

The way that my brain is hardwired, while relevant to the life I would have had thousands, and possibly hundreds of years ago, is not adapted to life today. Life today is mostly (for privileged people like me, at least) safe. I don’t need to focus on staying alive and I don’t need to prioritise reproducing - the two basic things my brain is hardwired evolutionary speaking to make me do. 

 

I don’t need to worry so much about staying alive because, frankly, society does it for me. My world (again, a very privileged one) is safe. I don’t need to be worried about being eaten by wolves or die starving in the forest. For that matter, I don’t need to worry about being kicked out of the tribe, especially a tribe I don’t feel I belong to, because I can very well survive on my own. 

 

I don’t need to be worried about reproducing either. That’s because I couldn’t care less about having my genes out there. I’m perfectly fine with the idea that my, Charlotte’s, gene pool stops here with me. 

 

In other words, I’m saying that the commands that are embedded in my brain don’t serve me today. 

 

That means that the base information that my brain sends me, such as worrying about what other people think, getting anxious if there’s a long line at a restaurant, and worrying about being desired by others, is all rather cumbersome. Most, if not all, of my “base” desires exist to ensure that I meet my evolutionary goals—stay alive and reproduce—which, as established, are no longer relevant. I.e. most of my base desires don’t serve the life that I want. 

 

This, to me, is where the concept of controlling my desires makes A LOT OF SENSE! 

 

Part 2: Then what? 

 

I’ve so casually rejected my evolutionary purpose. Great. Now what? 

 

If I’m not going to spend most of my time and energy focusing on staying alive and reproducing, what will I do with my time and energy? 

 

A few years ago, this question would have sent me down a dark hole. I would have started to question the point of it all and not ended up in a great place. 

 

Today, I feel very differently about it. Today, I believe that there is a point. Everything matters, a lot. Today, there are much more important things to me than whether I stay alive and I reproduce. 

 

This brings me to a whole new set of desires. Not the base desires that get me to buy yet another dress in which I think I project something desirable to others. No, desires that make my life, as a whole, worthwhile for me. 

 

I’m still working out my philosophy of life. It might take my whole life to figure it out! But this is what I’ve come up with so far. 

 

Many of my contemporaries believe the world is going to sh*t, that we’re all a horrible bunch of people (the bloody human race) and that all is lost. 

 

I couldn’t disagree more. 

 

I believe that we live in an unprecedented age. We live in an age where more and more humans deeply care about others, and not just other humans, but also animals and the planet in general. This is extraordinary because our brains didn’t evolve to care about people, let alone things, on such a large scale. 

 

Our brain has the basic us/others binary, which is extremely powerful and explains why we’ll go to war or never speak to a sibling again. The simple fact that, intellectually as well as emotionally speaking, we are able to see an entire planet as a “we/us” is incredible. 

 

There are a whole lot of problems, of course, that make it very, very difficult for us to act on a daily basis, taking into account every second of the way that the whole planet is an “us.” That’s why we continue to do things that are polluting, and we continue to get angry at our neighbours. In most of our day-to-day, we follow the so-called evolutionary autopilot. That doesn’t make us bad. It just makes us the evolutionary product that we are. 

 

I believe today is an unprecedented age because we are consciously trying to evolve into people who can act every moment of the day whilst taking into account the wellbeing of an entire planet. That. Is. Extraordinary. 

 

Okay. So this isn’t so much a philosophy of life as a statement or a belief. 

 

Part 3: My philosophy of life (POL)

 

I guess that my POL, therefore, is that I want to participate and contribute to this new species of humans who are getting closer to being able to act on a day-to-day basis whilst taking into account the wellbeing of an entire planet. 

 

I want to do this while at the same time being as happy as I can be and enjoying life as much as I can. 

 

(Because let’s face it, if the journey sucks, what’s the point of even trying?)

 

This is a goal that inspires me. 

 

Of course, there are some MAJOR obstacles ahead, starting with how this brain of mine was designed.

 

But I’m excited to be even trying.