I realized today I need another reset. Fresh start. New leaf and page.

I've been accepted into the University of the People, a tuition-free accredited university in the United States. I'll be starting in April, the month I turn thirty.I sent an email to see how many of my credits from my previous degree (Arts, English Honours) can be transferred over.

Like a lot of people, I need a combination of structure and chaos. My leash has gotten too loose, I've grown too long in the tooth and I find myself once again becoming complacent, sleepwalking through various hours of the day.

I'm not the kind of person that takes risks and gambles based on what I think is going to lead me to being successful in the future. To be honest, I think I would be far worse-off if I did that. I am, instead, oriented towards joy.

The gut is the compass. To change the trajectory of your life based on an inclination, the whimsical nature of following whims.

The Prosperity Gospel of Deferred Happiness

I see people living life as though it can be gamed, as though you can find something worthwhile on the other side of spending your time being miserable in the present moment. No amount of power, clout, or currency will ever fill the gaping chest-wound caused by a lack of joy, a lack of internal meaningfulness. Whisper the prosperity gospel to the golden calf, if you feel so inclined.

I want to clarify, though, I am not speaking of sacrificing yourself for the sake of others. I believe that is always worthwhile. For all we have is each other. Rather, I am speaking more of the ambitious individualism that has severed our natural connection to one another. The manifest destiny of the self which has festered and created a layer of sediment between us, between one another. The pursuit of happiness is designed for the collective.

We have never lived in a meritocracy. We've barely found the liberty so many have died for. The older I get, the more I believe in the spiritual necessity of vigilantism. For there is nobody that is going to save us but ourselves. To take matters into our own hands.

This philosophy—joy as compass, collective liberation over individual ambition—sounds clean and confident when I write it down. But let me be more transparent about where I'm actually writing this from.

The Honest Assessment

Let me shed all pretense and speak candidly. I don't think I'm doing that good right now. On paper, I'm prospering in a way I never have before in my life. I am safe, doing what I love as a job full-time, I am shelf-stable.

But I also broke up with my partner of over a year. I am grieving an unborn child. I am turning thirty in a month and I do not know what kind of future the world has for me.

My living conditions, like the living conditions of near everyone, are going to get worse. This feels as inevitable as Newton's gravity. We are not going to get out of this unscathed. We are running out of water, out of space, out of time.

We are always running out of time. We are always in a constant state of losing one another.

Perhaps I am burnt out and need a break. Perhaps I need to push myself in different, new ways. Exciting novel prods at the body ilk. Thirty-years-old is young, relatively-speaking. But for most of human existence it is average; a fine life.

12,000 Generations

When I say most, I truly mean most. There have been 12,000 generations of homo sapien sapien. We were nomadic bipedal apes for so, so long. I think this needs to be meditated on more often.

Modern humans emerged roughly 300,000 years ago. If we assume an average generation spans 25 years, that gives us approximately 12,000 generations of anatomically modern humans. For the vast majority of that time, 95% of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, moving with the seasons, sleeping under stars, reading only landscapes.

The state we are in right now is so wholly incomprehensible and yet our heavy, domesticated brain adapts (and shrinks). Human brains have actually decreased in size over the past 20,000 years, losing roughly the volume of a tennis ball. We outsourced cognition and survival skills to social structures and agriculture.

Of course I am endlessly grateful that, out of 12,000 generations, I was born into one with warm, soft clothing and easily-available candy and medicine and magic slabs of metal that produce symbols when I press down on square plastic keys. How joyous this angelic future has held for us.

For 11,800 of those 12,000 generations, there was no written language. No cities. No agriculture. For most of human existence, our ancestors lived in bands of 25-50 individuals, sharing resources, falling in love around fires, bodies moving constantly through wild spaces.

And yet here I am, one generation out of 12,000, experiencing a breakup via text message, grieving a future that will never arrive, watching the climate collapse on a screen, enrolled in a virtual university that exists nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. The absurdity and privilege are staggering.

The Ancient Body in the Modern World

Outside, the trees still sway. Birds still find seed. The snow is worthwhile, muffling the sound of noise pollution. The sky still has sparkling constellations late at night. We are still nomadic bipedal apes, but we have learned to plant seeds and stay.

Our bodies are still running the same operating system our paleolithic ancestors had. The fight-or-flight response that helped us escape predators now activates when we check our bank accounts. The dopamine systems that rewarded finding ripe fruit now keep us scrolling. We are Stone Age minds navigating a Digital Age world, and the mismatch creates suffering.

All I am is this body. This body is all I'll ever be, no matter what. That was the contract I signed at the beginning of this existence. That's the deal, that's the rub. A fool's errand of alchemy performed before I had eyes.

The truth is in remembering. I am an animal. A remarkably lucky animal, born into generation 12,000, grieving and struggling and seeking joy the same way my ancestors did for 11,999 generations before me.

What We Owe to Deep Time

I place my thirty years against the backdrop of 12,000 generations. My breakup is a variation on an ancient theme. All humans have been losing each other since the beginning. My grief over an unborn child echoes across millennia of similar losses, in dead languages no longer uttered.

The world has always been ending for someone. And yet, here we are. 12,000 generations later, still finding ways to hope, to create, to plant seeds even when we want to run.

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if pursuing another degree is wisdom or just another way of avoiding the present moment. I don't know how to reconcile the personal grief with the collective collapse, or how to live joyfully while the world burns.

But I know this body. I know the trees still sway. I know that for 12,000 generations, humans have figured out how to keep going.