Appropos of Nothing

Appropos of nothing, as I was driving around yesterday listening to NPR, I just had to turn it off. It was simply too stressful to listen to the debates on McNeil/Lehrer about one policy issue or another. Like my friend Mark, who gave up NPR a few years ago because he realized it depressed him on the way to work, I started to wonder about the human species. I don’t think we’re adapted to bearing the stresses of the entire world. We evolved in a wilder, much more local environment. You worried about your family, your neighbors, the dangers of the natural world, and perhaps the threats of a neighboring tribe. But you didn’t worry about earthquakes in Haiti, wars in Afghanistan, healthcare for all Americans. You didn’t even know about anything beyond your small community. I started to yearn for provinicialism – the life my inlaws lead in rural Minnesota, still not connected to the Internet.

And now here I sit on an airplane to Japan, wondering: How can the human species tolerate jet travel, wandering through alien cultures, being totally confused when everyone speaks a different language, sleeping in strange beds, meeting people whose culture is vastly different from ones own. And I suppose the answer does lie in some evolutionary explanation: This species has a desire for adventure that has somehow served us well over time. The “fittest” struck out from home to settle new lands and explorers like Marco Polo brought home goods from other cultures. I’m not exactly one of them. I don’t plan to settle Japan or bring home some new ingredient never before experienced in America. But I hope I bring some of that same spirit: A curiosity to know what I didn’t know before; a desire to soak up what I can, and learn from what I see; and an ability to find joy in even the most stressful situations! So as we go through jetlag, deal with pickles for breakfast, and get lost in the Tokyo train system, I’ll let the evolutionary forces carry me forward, one adventure at a time.