Are humans really a cancer on the planet? Doesn’t evolution prove that only the most selfish and ruthless survive? As we awaken to the challenges of pandemics, climate change, species loss, and the suffering of our brothers and sisters around the globe, it is easy to experience overwhelming levels of fear and pain. Pain alerts us to problems that we can solve. Too much pain leads to numbness and ineffective overwhelm.
“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” ~ Tom Peters
As we seek to improve our lives and those of our loved ones, it becomes even more important to occasionally pause and reflect on the many gifts that have allowed our existence. In considering the Epic of Evolution, we discover solutions that have led to current successes. If we focus on what worked in the past, we can discover ways to meet the many challenges that would otherwise overwhelm and discourage us.
With a vast evolutionary perspective, we see that life is moving toward ever greater cooperation, complexity, and consciousness. When we pause to contemplate the awe and wonder of simply being alive, we open our hearts and minds to new possibilities for the future.
With a better understanding of the Epic of Evolution, humans have made tremendous progress that has benefited billions of people around the world as well as the environment that supports us.
Going forward, more information will liberate us from fearful notions of evolution: that only the most ruthless survive, that variation is solely the result of random errors and damage to DNA, and that emotions are a vestigial inconvenience to be overcome by drugs or distraction, that there is no direction in evolution. Instead, we see cooperation and kindness are also evolved traits, that “profitable” variations are the result of recombination, and that emotions can serve us, especially when we gain tools to “witness” them rather than be enslaved to them.
Thanks to scientific breakthroughs in genomics, information science, physics, statistics, and brain science we know that the universe is moving toward greater complexity, cooperation, and consciousness. This directionality, knnown as Evolution’s Arc, gives us a map of evolution that helps us navigate our lives. With a clearer understanding of how evolution happens, we can apply these principles to our lives and flourish more fully!
“The future belongs to those who have learned from the past.” ~ Ru Paul
These are just some of the reasons to celebrate!
For more reasons to celebrate our place and purpose in an evolving universe, click here: