We’d be happier if we embraced that fact and lived by it.
I’m not asking you to spend more time in nature, eat organic food, or take breaks from modern technology. Those are certainly healthy habits, but they’re only superficially animal-like. They’re what animals do by circumstance, because they happen to dwell in the wild. No, I’m asking you to think like an animal:
- Conserve your energy. Rest a lot. Take the easiest way out of things.
- Keep up the habits you already have. They’re probably okay.
- Don’t fret about not being good enough. You are what you are.
- Take the world the way it is, too, if you’re not in danger.
In essence, animals accept the life they’re living. They eat, sleep, work, and relax, not in the optimal ways, but in the ways they’re used to. If, say, microwave dinners and endless TikTok scrolling are pillars of your life, you’d be more animal-like to make peace with that fact, than to uninstall your social media and become a better cook. True, junk food isn’t good for you, but acceptance is. We’re built for it, like any beast.
Now, being human, we can transcend the animal mindset. We can choose to form better habits, change our conditions, or help the world. Humans possess the unique power of self-improvement. But I conceive this power to be finite. A person can only transcend to a degree, in a limited number of domains. In every other domain, they’ll default to their dreary habits. That way of life seems, to me, the healthiest for a human.
If you feel exhausted by life (and there’s no obvious reason, like dire poverty), perhaps you’re trying to be non-animal in too many ways. Perhaps you’re trying to change your diet and the world, when you only have power to spare for one of them. Perhaps you’re failing to record your music and send it to the labels because you’re conquering something inside yourself simply by writing it.
Spend your transcendence-points wisely, on the few pursuits that currently motivate you the most. Then leave the rest of your life to the contented animal, who will be happy to live it.