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<div class="ck-content"><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">From Evolution to Friluftsliv</h3>Last week, I shared some of my thoughts about evolution by natural selection. I mentioned that my reaction to learning in depth how evolution works was moral. Specifically, it made me want to:<ul style="list-style-type:disc;"><li>Minimize complicity in this killing, as much as I could.</li><li>Take direct and positive action to save non-human life, as much as I could.</li></ul>Another way that my study of evolution changed my life is that I became an evolutionist. Which meant that I asked myself: if humans hadn't used their opposable thumbs and neocortex to evade the natural laws of evolution, how would we be living? And try to do that as much as possible. Which for me meant among other things: spend as much time as possible outside; minimize the ingestion of artificial data. I think I'll hold off on exploring what I mean by “artificial data” for another week. And that brings me to friluftsliv.The world "friluftsliv," I discovered from a wonderful <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/27/the-norwegian-secret-how-friluftsliv-boosts-health-and-happiness">Guardian article</a>, is an amalgamation of the Norwegian words for free, air and life, and is best translated as an outdoors lifestyle. From the article:<blockquote>Friluftsliv is beneficial to physical health because it often involves exercise, but the mental benefits are just as important. Studies show that being in green spaces helps reduce anxiety and improve cognition. In a 2020 survey, 90% of Norwegians said they felt less stressed and in a better mood when they spent time in nature. Helga Synnevåg Løvoll, a professor of friluftsliv at Volda University College, says the five documented ways to wellbeing can be achieved through friluftsliv (they are “connect”, “be active”, “take notice”, “keep learning” and “give”).</blockquote>Or to put in my simple, mantra-esque way: outside > insideJust think: for all but the last couple of hundreds years of the history of the human species, we spent virtually all our time outside. We interacted (positively and negatively) with non-human species on a daily basis. We ate meals that were prepared from food, not food products. We drank water directly from rivers and lakes. We were rarely still, mostly just for meals and sleeping. I am not trying to argue that humans lived in some wonderful paradise prior to the Industrial Revolution. Clearly, many humans suffered greatly. But we lived and moved around in the natural world.<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Now We Spend Our Lives Inside Boxes</h3>Compared that to our lives today. If you are lucky enough to live in a “developed” nation, you likely spend the barest minimum of time in the natural world (ok, let's stop futzing around: the real world). You sleep inside a box (your bedroom) inside a box (your house or apartment building), usually sealed up tight. You take a box out of your refrigerator and put in the microwave. Breakfast. You leave your home and enter another box (car, bus, train), usually without stepping onto the living surface of your planet. You spend your day inside another box (office, store, warehouse, etc.). All along the way, smartphone in hand, distracted by “entertainment.” Then you reverse direction back to your home box, at which point after dinner you plop down in front of another screen, and then back to the bedroom box.And every one of those boxes? Dead zones. There used to be animals and plants. Now there's just steel and concrete and glass and plastic. In other words, we have been convinced, taught, endlessly propagandized that we can throw off billions of years of evolution, just cast it all aside, adopt an artificial way of life that severs us almost completely from the real world, and….then be shocked, I tell you, shocked that so many of us experience an across the board degradation of quality of life and health.Which brings me back to friluftsliv.What Norwegians are doing is living in the real world, living as the human organism evolved to live over billions of years. It is a shame and tragedy that this kind of living needs a special name, and that it is so unique among “developed” nations. Don't make it unique for you and yours. I have become thoroughly convinced that the first and most important thing a human can do if they want to be healthy and happy is live in the real world, live as much as possible as your pre-Industrial Revolution ancestors lived. Spend as much as you can outdoors. Don't fill my brain with content from screens. Instead, pay close attention to the real world around you. Observe what is going on around you, observe how your mind changes when you think for yourself and do not simply ingest what some corporation wants to stick into your brain.Whew, OK then.Let's take a vote: is that enough ranting from Steven for one newsletter? The vote is unanimous! I close out my comments with a photo from Saturday's TriWild in Brumley. Kent (first timer!), Alysia and Libby helped me take down some REALLY BIG PRIVET. We'll be back on Oct 7 to clobber a bunch more - join us!<div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1A95HZRe73yDjOWLeoKda6p1bUaxo_Gwz" alt="Big privet came down" width="600" height="400"></div>May I suggest a small vow to take for the planet? I urge myself to Every day do something to heal the planet. Sometimes the thing I do is “big”, sometimes it might only be a small act, such as pulling up some honeysuckle in my yard. But every day, something.Take care,  Steven  P.S. If you are looking for a source of written news that is not deeply problematic in one way or another, do check out <a href="https://theguardian.com">The Guardian</a>. No paywall (though they do ask you often to donate, which I do), excellently well researched articles, very strong on climate change and biodiversity. </div>