Living With Trauma; The Healers, 39

We really are a backward species. Our brains appear to have evolved way ahead of our hearts and souls, and this most important part of who we are, this very essence of ourselves has light years of catching up to do with our allegedly rational minds, if we are to become complete human beings. When our earliest ancestors emerged out of Africa, when the first aboriginal peoples of the Americas set foot on present day Alaska, those were people struggling for the very elements of basic survival. It was all about staying alive long enough to pass on their genetic material for future generations, though they probably didn't think of it that way. Or maybe they did. The instinct and the very notion of continuing and perpetuating our survival through our descendants has been with us for a very long time. There was very little incentive to develop a sense of compassion for competing and enemy tribes and bands while trying to secure food, territory and security for your own people. Survival was the daily grind and any developing culture was hinged around this very basic fact of life and existence. There were animals to kill for food, others to be killed or avoided so they wouldn't make food of humans. The weather and climate were generally harsh and unforgiving. This was especially essential for our tropical and subtropical species. Even after thousands of years spent adapting to some of the most extreme climates on the planet, we are still not naturally adapted to living in an environment colder than the Mediterranean. No self-respecting Inuit would wander naked into a snowstorm, and not simply because of modesty. It would be suicide. The hapless bastard would be dead within minutes from frostbite and hypothermia. Unlike polar bears or musk ox we are not protected by a thick layer of fur. Unlike seals or whales we have no insulating blubber under our skin. We are the only species alive that has to cover itself in order to be adequately protected from the cold. We do not belong in a cold climate. We are a tropical species. So, how did we end up leaving the comfort of the African sun? There was all kinds of climate change, but I haven't done a lot of research on this. I am going to hazard to guess that it was especially drought and possibly flooding from intense rains that made Africa uninhabitable. Early humans already had the fully developed brain we take for granted. It didn't take them long to figure out how to cover themselves with animal skins as protection from the cold, especially with much of Eurasia lying frozen under thick sheets of glacial ice. They knew how to make and use fire. This kept them warm and gave them light at night as well as cooking their meat for them. The need to survive in a strange and hostile environment also necessitated the instinct of dominance. Kill or be killed. Our early ancestors were not going to be cowed by anything or anyone. They went forth conquering and to conquer, without even the remotest sense of the importance of love and compassion. Those luxuries would be reserved for their mates and their own offspring. In the meantime, they came to thrive in a cold and hostile climate to which they were not adapted, a climate they would be in perpetual battle against, contaminating and destroying at a measure and rate that has increased exponentially and astronomically. We live and thrive in the hostile climates of Europe and North America where we have unleashed the greatest wonders of our human genius, since necessity will always be the mother of invention. And our mother is now about to turn on us and devour us.