Written by Joseph Wilson

77.5 years is the latest statistical life expectancy according to the World Health Organization. Perhaps it’s not the most accurate analysis, however, it represents the general time frame of a human life at the historical moment we are living in. History has a lot of missing data and many events that have gone unseen, but we live in a time where every major and minor event is captured. It is not that we advanced in the information itself. For example, as a child I was told that if I ate carrots, I would have better eyesight, but now I know that to be false or at least not all the way true. It’s more so that we have the tools to see almost anything we want to, if we want to. We have the opportunity to see things – maybe even things you would be likely better off not knowing, for example: how hot dogs are made, how much plastic is in our food, how close society is to collapse, or how close your favorite animal is to extinction.  These are the things that our ever growing database can provide us with information for. But more terrifyingly, I can see the most likely killers of my time. I can open Google and see how all 8 billion of us are likely going to die and I can see what will likely be the cause of my own death. I don’t view this as a blessing, or something that I am lucky to have. I don’t want to know these things. I don’t want to know that I can know these things. It’s like when the person next to you tells you how the book you’re reading is going to end, except it’s not just a book, it’s the 77.5 years you get to spend being alive, and you have to carry that book around till you die and become a statistic so that someone else might learn how they will die.

I don’t want you to think that I, in any way, love nature, or that I gawk at the beauty it presents, or that nature is inherently good. Nature is cruel, vicious, and beautiful; it is chaotic and peaceful, brutal and caring, captivating and confusing, it is one giant contradiction. Nature is something that we put up with and wrestle with and endure, we have to adapt and change, we have to become one with nature and become harmonious. 

Unlike most species, our history is about changing our environment around us in unnatural ways to better benefit ourselves beyond nature’s plan. We believe that we can overcome nature. But nature is not something we can hide from, and we cannot ignore its overarching presence. Most people think of nature as lush green fields, the calming sound of water drops softly landing on leaves, gazelles grazing, or the vast savannas, but probably not harsh winds, giant tornados, large hurricanes, extreme heat and frigid cold, forest fires and animal on animal brutality, and the lust and hunger that forces nature to rip itself apart just to rebuild. We go on accepting nature’s savagery because it’s well. . . natural. We as humans like to try to exclude ourselves from the savagery that nature presents. When we look at cruelty we describe it as inhumane, as if it is not a part of human nature or somehow we supersede it as if we’re incapable of it. By describing cruelty as inhumane we create a psychological barrier separating ourselves from the cruelty we see. Through this I think we can see how humanity perceives itself: we would like to think of ourselves as above our cruelty, as defiant of nature, different from other species. But I don’t think this comes from us denying nature, but rather from this underlying ambition to strive for more, these important and untouched motivations and drive to be more than nature. 

There is an eternal desire of man to be more than the conditions and limitations we’re bound by, to transcend mere adaptation and to have full control of the environment around us rather than being controlled by it. You see this in all of human history: from topping the food chain and controlling agriculture to the small things we don’t think about, like controlling the temperature or lighting the street at night. Early humans did not adapt to the cold or darkness; they controlled fire. They did not grow fur, they killed animals and wore their fur. We did not adapt, but saw an opportunity that nature presented us and took it. To quote Julius Caesar, we came, we saw, and we conquered. This is the dividing line between us and our furry friends. They will never on their current evolutionary path reach this level of critical thinking. They can’t make fire,  or harvest one another’s fur. They see, they feel, they react,  but they will never understand why they do. And throughout history, mankind has done everything but sit down and make the best of the cards he has been dealt. Man is not a content animal; we haven’t even stuck to the same rock, we blasted off the thing exploring the vast unknown beyond our reach.

It is this constant need to be in control paired with infinite knowledge that is the problem. The one thing that we can’t work around, can’t overcome, is the race we are always going to lose. It gives a bittersweet taste after every achievement. It’s the absolute certainty of an end. It is haunting, the distinct uncertainty that any day could be your last, that no matter how great you are or how much you accomplish, you will inevitably fall. And it is this very thing that makes our 77.5 years so precious. The further back in history, the shorter the lifespan was. Man has always strived for what they can’t have, immortality, but immortality brings no meaning; there would be no reason to do anything because it can always be done later. I think that living forever but still having the pleasure of death is the best option. But what happens after the rush of overcoming something as monumental as death?. How does one navigate an indefinite eternity with death still present? 

We long for what we once had. If I were gasping for breaths and deep down knew they were my last, my mundane existence that I have spent my entire life hating would suddenly seem so beautiful in such a way I have never experienced. I would kiss the traffic light I once cursed at, let the bug bite me one more time, an pointless Algebra class would suddenly become the most captivating lecture ever taught, the ache in my back, the sting of a paper cut would be a blessing in those last moments because it reminded me that I was alive. I would be overwhelmed with a melancholy of gratitude; that I got to feel that pain; that I got to wait at that light just a little bit longer, and these feelings would hit me so deeply they would feel more real than the air I was breathing in my final breath. The brutality of nature we wished we never saw would appear as the most beautiful picture ever taken. And my last thought would be, what an utter privilege it is to be alive.