Optimization and Humanity

Before reading this article, I would just like to offer some music that will enhance your viewing pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq0h20jGiFk

Optimizing The Human

First becoming aware of how you and your own body, because the body is an entity of its own in many regards, you’re not consciously digesting your food or circulating red blood cells, should be a primary focus. It’s not necessarily a life-long pursuit or a permanently primary concern; you don’t need to dedicate all your years to it. Once you cultivate healthy patterns of behavior in terms of feeding yourself and exercising yourself, it shifts to an automatic process. Once you’ve learned what you require to function optimally, you can then dedicate to your intellectual interests with more clarity and cleverness than you could if you were functioning with a sub-optimal machine. 

First and foremost, carbohydrates are not your enemy, they are your best friend. Not all carbohydrates are the same. Highly processed and artificially-manufactured foods with a myriad of additives will cause harm to your body, regardless of the carbohydrate contents. Nearly every single biological organism on Earth runs on glucose.A sugar-fuel which the body uses carbohydrates to acquire. You require good carbohydrates for mental energy as well as physical energy. With a sufficient amount of carbohydrates in conjunction with adequate sleep, you will never feel lethargic and you will always want to be actively engaged in something. The best source of carbohydrates is Oatmeal, particularly steel cut oats, which offers a plethora of benefits besides energy, whole grain anything, not "Made With Whole Grain," but 100% Whole Grain food. Simple sugars provide the immediate boost of energy, carbohydrates then sustain that energy by slowly digesting, so you do want a decent amount of sugar in your diet if you're mentally or physically active. 

Obviously, as well, movement and hydration play a key role in maintaining a healthy system. The most beneficial activity that you can engage in which comes naturally to every human with functioning limbs is walking. Walking is incredible at managing weight, provoking thought, and stimulating an optimal amount of energy if you are well-rested. Hydration varies by the person, I like to have about three liters a day when I'm not exerting myself strenuously, I've discovered that that allows me to adequately flush my system and balance my mood and energy.

An important point to mention is that diet is purely experiential. I'd get a journal, experiment for a few weeks or months with the ratios of nutrients you are ingesting and record how you are feeling each day as well as what you're eating. The correlation between dietary intake and overall mood and energy is undeniable. There are a few staples that have been discovered by humans which will always serve you well though.. My favorite breakfast that I've been eating every single morning for a year is a single cup of steel cut oats with a banana chopped into it while it's boiling. This provides me with about 500 calories, 100g of carbohydrates, 5g of fat, 24g of protein and 18g of fiber. Very optimal food with an optimal ratio of nutrients.

Humanity

The currently-preferred view of humanity states that we’ve been anatomically modern for roughly two-hundred thousand years and intellectually competent for roughly fifty-thousand years.  My dates may be off but they are very close. Now, current anthropology states that we’ve only had a firm understanding of agriculture for roughly ten-thousand years; the advent of agriculture is what separates the Paleolithic era from the Neolithic era. Remember that we’ve been intellectually competent for fifty-thousand years, however. Just as we have very advanced societies today and rather rudimentary ones, wouldn’t it be fair to assert that it’s always been this away amongst separated cultures? Certain humans are born with the ability to grok certain idea’s that other human’s can’t even fathom, such as theoretical physics. The latest ice-age covered most of the inland areas, leaving coastlines as the most favorable locations to set-up an encampment or perhaps construct a civilization, the great flood DID happen, and it happened when all that ice from the ice age melted and returned to the oceans, sinking many civilizations that were on the coastline. 

I didn’t just pull that out of my ass, Graham Hancock, an anthropologist and journalist who dissents from mainstream anthropology, has done hundreds of dives on the coast of Japan, uncovering very many advanced structures that could only be constructed by human beings. These now lie dormant underwater, hidden from the untrained diver, which, by the way, requires years of training. Most anthropologists haven’t even seen these ancient relics of civilization because they’re inadequately trained in diving and attempting to dive severely risks their life. If you’re interested in learning about this a little more, search up Graham Hancock, specifically, his book entitled "Fingerprints of the Gods," and "Magicians of the Gods" which is releasing soon.

Learning about the past of humanity is very pragmatic. Some would postulate that learning about our past is useless, providing little to no benefit to our future. Well, if we examine how ancient civilizations, or even more recent ones, caused or met their demise, wouldn’t that help prevent our own? Unfortunately we seem to have learned scant about our past mistakes regarding environmental shifts and water droughts. Entire civilizations have had to uproot and abandon their city because they simply ran out of water. If you run out of water, you either migrate or die. You could say that with our global economy this is no longer a worry, that if one area runs out of water they can simply purchase water from a neighboring town, which will only temporarily ameliorate the problem, or they could invade a neighboring country with an abundant supply, creating more war. But, if we examined our past and learned what happened to societies which exceeded their ability to supply the ever-increasing population with water and food, we could easily prevent that all from happening through limited and smart breeding. It’s not very complicated to supply a population if you remain within logical parameters.

Humanity thrived on smaller communities of nearly 160 people for a long time. When you live within a village or town of that size, you can sustain a relationship with every individual and be aware when someone isn’t contributing to the well-being of the tribe. Human’s ARE tribal animals, we are engineered to live in smaller communities that force everyone to contribute actively and allow you to sustain a relationship with the people around you, because you depend on them for survival, and they depend on you. Once you exceed that and start gathering millions of humans into a city, you start breeding super-germs, you get an increased rate of mentally-unstable citizens, you increase the rate of depression, basically, you endanger the human. I believe the key to persisting as a species is smaller communities with a focus on relationships and dependency. This becomes an unfavorable alternative when you have other savage apes that can start their own community of the same or larger size which can overthrow your own, however.

Learning about these types of topics serves a very real benefit to you. Learning what the human requires in terms of nourishment and environmental circumstances allows you to optimize yourself and proactively pursue a healthier, more stress-free life. This society will unfortunately persist until it can no longer do so, whether that be through a cataclysmic event or the gradual decline of resources, doesn't matter. But out there still exists small communities with a strong focus on relationships and real food. If you're reading this from a city, you aren't permanently trapped here, it's only a single domain for the human.