The Indominable Will To Survive

I've been thinking a lot lately about human nature. Specifically, how well we adapt to changing situations. When faced with tragedy or loss or other situations that profoundly affect the way in which we live our lives, we have learned that either we can adapt our own personal outlook to the changing situations, what could be vernacularized as "rolling with the punches", or, we can shut down.

Now, unless we are fortunate enough to have loved ones around us willing to care for us through difficult circumstances, we will not be likely to have the option of shutting down. So, we, as human beings, do what we have done for all of human history: we adapt, and we thrive.

The human condition, while occasionally terrible and horrifying in it's inhumanity, can also be quite awe-inspiring. No other species we know of has both the mental capacity to understand tragedy and loss and the ability to move beyond it.

During our brief and tumultuous reign as the dominate species on the planet, we have teeter on the edge of extinction multiple times, dealing with Ice Ages, plagues, genocides, and natural disasters, and yet, due to our ability to understand and adapt to our environment, we have survived. But, maybe we're just to stubborn as species to give up and let someone else take over our planet.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”