Meditation: The Apex Luxury of Thug Life

Every time there is a space mission — excitement spreads via news reports, youtube videos, etc. Suddenly, everyone is a rocket scientist explaining the spacecrafts’ designs. It is very common to hear: “…It is built to survive the harsh conditions of space…”.

But harsh doesn’t mean ‘bad’, right? It is just unfavorable to humans (and maybe other things). Because let’s not forget that even Earth’s conditions could have been just as harsh. Imagine what the earliest life forms had to deal with: No oxygen, too much methane, volcanic activity, etc. Every passing second was probably a matter of life and death.

And as if surviving through that shit-show wasn’t enough, Life, by design, tends to be, should we say, thug? Thug Life — that is what Life really is. (sounds weird — I wonder if joke “It didn’t choose the thug life, the Thug Life chose it” even applies to Life itself…)

Anyway, (Thug) Life works by looking to use any and every thing around it to self-propagate. Sure, in the short run, heart warming acts of selflessness among animals (mothers feeding their young, herds protecting the weak) in the wild might get captured on video, make it to social media and go viral, but really, every such selfless act has an overarching selfish motive if we thought about it deeply enough and were those people that everyone hates.

Given this “harsh” backdrop that Life thrives in, living things have a lot to fear.

• So many creatures reproduce even if reproduction means death, so I’d say concern for reproducing consistently ranks at top.
• Dying of starvation/predators is the next most widespread.
• Sleeping hungry or getting killed by pathogens is a concern for far fewer.
• Getting fat via over nourishment is a concern for the tiniest fraction of life forms (especially not Americans).

Ultimately, to be able to meditate, i.e., to stay still in one location and literally do nothing has to be the bougie-est luxury a living being has been granted in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. Imagine how jealous the earliest life forms would be to see someone just sit still and chill, without worrying about:

• Hunger
• Predation (unless you are in Florida — no, not by alligators/sharks — I mean by molesters. Too dark?) or
• Climactic Extremities (again, excluding Florida) or even,
• Sex (ok, that was a joke)

No wonder it is so hard to actually make a habit of meditating. Every instinct at every point in every bit of our eternal lineage of ancestors is aimed at dealing with life threatening problems. Suddenly, we are trying to adapt to an environment without any of those problems. It takes practice. This also implies that by instinct, we react as if we are our ancestors — to several long extinct problems that they had to deal with.

So, is meditation ultimately a way to sober up to reality? So that we are dealing with Today’s problems and not those that cavemen had to deal with, like Measels? Oh, wait. Fuck You, anti-vaxxers, way to fuck up my flow. Regardless, my theory probably explains the frequently quoted “benefits of mindfulness” and praise that meditation receives from its practitioners- It gives them a competitive advantage while most of society instinctually is trying to run from Pterosaurs. Maybe meditation dries out the thoughts driven by habit and instinct (especially those passed down by our ancestors via DNA).

If that was the case what would it look like, biologically? If you are curious, maybe, stay tuned for my next piece of garbage!