 Human domestication. Being civilized. This word that sounds very positive and in so many ways is. We have this wonderful system that we live within that provides unimaginable in earlier times levels of safety, security, a whole framework for living our lives in which we don't have to worry about basic survival as long as we can operate within the system, make enough money for basic shelter and food. We don't need to face these basic survival issues. Now of course with all the exceptions and all the the dangerous things that can happen within civilization certainly, but it insulates us in so many ways from this sort of raw nature the wild where we have no guarantees of and no easy way to get food we have no guarantees that others won't rob from us and kill us and there's just no the level of safety simply isn't there in the wild either the safety of getting what we need to survive and the safety of not having it taken away and not being killed. So compared to that state of nature that that wild you know living outside the law outside civilization alone or in our groups in the wild compared to that we have a huge advantage as people living in this civilization but there's always a price to be paid of course you know we can decide whether it's worth it because we're certainly getting a lot out of it so we can decide that it's a worthwhile price to pay but I think we should be aware of the price and there's something that it's becoming increasingly clear to me and truly shouting louder to me recently is it's that when we think of what it means to be a civilized human to be living in these this orderly system where we do everything within the system and we're taken care of with minimal effort except as necessary to work within the system you know we do what we need to to make the money we need and then we can easily spend our money to buy shelter and food with all the exceptions and the difficulties of course but we are being taken care of in a level that would be unimaginable in the wild and what it reminds me of is a zoo it reminds me of an animal that is being taken care of we operate within a defined environment much like a nicely laid out zoo pen and we do what we need to to get we get given food not quite you know for doing nothing we have to find some way to make the money but it's all within a very orderly system and you know as long as we're able to make the money and behave in a way that's acceptable within the system we can live out our lives in safety relatively inside the zoo now what does that mean what is that what effect does that have it's got to be doing something we we are being changed the humans that we see now being a domesticated animal is different than being a wild animal we have changed we are changing when you look at those animals in the zoo there's something sad about them when you see these animals that are just in a pen even if it's a very nice pen they don't have the same kind of energy to them this kind of feeling of vitality is somehow reduced because they're just being taken care of within their defined area I remember seeing this tiger in the zoo I'll never forget the seeing a tiger and it was just walking back and forth it was just it would walk to one end and then it would turn around and walk to the other end and it was just in this kind of repetitive I mean this repetitive action of just walking back and forth it just seemed kind of psychologically damaged it was just like it was stuck in a loop where it didn't know what else to do was kind of freaking out but there was nothing it could do so it was just this sort of repeated tick this repeated habit of behavior and it seems like so many humans fall into the same thing so many of the issues that we have parallel the issues of animals in a zoo so I'd be curious to hear what you think about this and it's kind of chilling to think about you know being an animal in a zoo of course on the other hand I don't know if we're at all ready for living in the wild and I don't want to have any illusions about the wild being you know a wonderful paradise place because it's also a place of violence and danger and very easy death so it's not like the wild is this magical paradise that we can all get into if we just break out of the zoo but just the fact that we're in a zoo it seems to have its unavoidable effects so I'd be very curious to hear what you think about this idea