Technology’s influence on our genetic makeup
The technology we utilize significantly influences our genetic makeup. From fire to AI, as technology blends into society, making our lives easier, the tolerance for healthy stresses diminishes. Consequently, entitlement becomes normalized, and respect for hard work is undervalued and lost.
Technology is not to blame for this misstep. In the long term, not innovating is more disastrous than what’s lost from innovation. Nature is always competitively imposing its force on us. Some examples include aging, viruses, and predators. Natural threats are why we evolved to invent homes, guns, bug spray, sunscreen, and so on.
Innovation is a human responsibility
Its purpose is to make our lives easier, protect us from future threats, create abundance, and extend our abilities. However, we must remain aware of the potential consequences of abusing the shortcuts technology grants us. If we extrapolate the concepts assumed from the law of diminishing marginal utility to our topic, we can infer that too much comfort becomes counterproductive or potentially deadly. The further removed a generation is from a technological breakthrough, the more they become enslaved to it (we all wear shoes even though it’s better for our joints to be barefoot). The more enslaved we become the less competence we inherit. This inheritance, if left undiagnosed, impacts our genes over time. Or at the very least becomes the new normal.
Regressing in times of fortune
All the comfort in the world has contributed to major mental and physical fragility. Look no further than those in competition to prove their victimhood. With the integration of tools, we’ve cheated ourselves out of essential roles needed for a well-functioning society. We’re hands-off with our kids, leaving propaganda to raise them while we relax. Health has continually been on the decline for decades relying on medicine. Even the thoughts occupying our timelines are to pacify us. For more on our societal regression, read this article.
Ironically, as our tools become more fun and practical, we unconsciously become over-invested in them in pursuit of shortcuts, abandoning qualities pivotal for survival.
Discomfort is a requirement to thrive
Discomfort is the opportunity to learn or strengthen a weakness. Nature’s objective, seemingly, is to task us with a new set of challenges. What is sunshine without rain? This is the balance of the universe. We can’t succeed without failure, we can’t build muscle without sacrificing, and we can’t know love without experiencing pain. However, today and in the future, many technologies will be sold under the disguise of providing you with your end goal, cutting out the work formerly required. This inevitable offering of technology will continue to mislead people into thinking they can hack their way to achieve anything. Whether true or not, it will cheat society by eliminating many essential challenges. As a result, critical thinking will continue to fade along with mental health, and heart disease may shockingly remain the number one killer of Americans as we become further propelled to deeper levels of laziness.
The way we advance is by being intentional and seeking healthy discomforts. We must understand that weight loss prescriptions, comfort foods, and elevators are more harmful than that internet personality you hate. The ability to withstand non-life-threatening suffering is more transferable to success than avoidance or utilizing handouts. Here are ways we currently abuse comfort and practical ways to strategically embrace discomfort.
Comfort:
- Eating comfort/ unhealthy foods
- Avoiding relationships when they become challenging to escape having hard conversations
- Sitting for large chunks of the day which reduces the engagement of muscles and weakens the heart
- Reinforcing our beliefs- following like-minded people keeping you blind to other points of view
- Recreational drug use and escapism
- Over-caffeinating -> increases the probability of dementia
- Wearing the victim badge/ blaming others
- Sitting your kids in front of devices all day and relying on others to teach them all they need to know
- Trusting “talking heads” instead of researching to verify
- Finding comfort in sugar, social media, music, TV, gossip, or other choice of medium
Discomfort
- The antidote for comfort is discipline and perseverance
- Exercise
- Fast- go cold turkey on something solo or make it fun with friends
- Healthy food choices
- Sobriety or intentional use of ego-shattering plant medicines- psychedelics
- Take the stairs
- Sit in silence
- Practice good posture to improve your mood
- Fight for relationships during the toughest moments
- Seek ideologically challenging relationships and spaces
- Occasionally go barefoot to strengthen your feet and joints – How Shoes Change Your Feet – Squat University
- Control the ego
- Ice bath or cryotherapy
- Wake up without reaching for your phone or consuming caffeine for the first 90 minutes
- If it doesn’t challenge you physically or mentally, there can still be value but question the purpose of it
The underlying connector
The thing that is interconnected here is our base technology, money. In the modern world, everything is commodified. This means everything is a derivative (built on the system) of money. As money becomes corrupt, everything else in nature is compromised. Unfortunately, our monetary system has morphed into a tool that works for the minority, steals from most (via inflation & taxes), and commits violence on competition and those who don’t participate (nonhuman organisms whose habitats are threatened). This leads to infinite societal issues as people need someone to be angry at or a reason to feel helpless because they’re unable to identify the root issue. It becomes easy to blame immigrants, a different tribe of people, or “they” as the reason your hard-earned wealth is being diluted, alongside your self-esteem.
As generations allow this problem to worsen, many families become dysfunctional, and recycling traumas become a norm.
The future was created yesterday
We only evolved because of our ability to be innovative and harness technology. As we look into the future, we must preserve and glorify basic prerequisites essential to our existence. Not because of fear or ideological convictions but because of self-preservation, the preservation of our ability to think critically, be healthy, and be mentally balanced. Seeking comfort provides us with more sedentary lifestyles while simultaneously ruining the health and mental well-being of future generations. The longer we allow this cycle to continue, the harder it is to fix, becoming invisible over time, similar to our debt crisis. However, if we develop healthy relationships with our tools, we secure our kid’s freedom and unlock global abundance.
