The debate between Science and Religion, the sacred and the secular battles between the pulpit and the petri dish are, for me, a waste of time.  Whether you believe we walked out of the Garden of Eden or off the Savannas of Africa, there is common ground….we walked.

Technically, forbidden trees or dwindling trees, either way you look at it, we were evicted and subsequently began to figure on our own feet. From that point forward, our brains and minds reasoned on the run. We think at our best when our feet and hands get dirty.

“What other animal retires?” Michael Roberts is quoted on CNN. “If a lion retires today, tomorrow morning he becomes his brother’s breakfast.”

DNA is designed for deployment and discovery.

Exploration is just another word for Evolution.

Do you find it at all interesting that the first two pages of a Google search for Dwindling Habitats contained references to Rhinos, Polar Bears, Grizzly Bears, Bats, Scrub Jays, Tigers, Lions, Mountain Lions, Frogs, Owls, Grouse and even mice, yet no mentions of humans losing their habitat; not a single reference.

The habitats, jungles, forests, savannahs, mountains, the dynamic circumstances that our distant cousins faced, the natural surroundings that forged who we are, are dwindling fast. No longer do we search for food under the constant threat of becoming food. Instead of hunting for dinner we head to the grocery store, we needn’t chop wood because we have electric heat, why bother walking into a pharmacist’s counter to get your prescription medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol when you can just sit and hit the drive-up window? Finding water is easy, we just turn on the faucet!

The ubiquitous challenge and constant change that crafted us, one step at a time, is replaced with the status quo of comfort zones and its contraptions of convenience. We no longer scamper and scavenge and have long since forgotten how to fend for ourselves, in the wilderness abroad or within our very own minds. Our innate abilities to rally against unimaginable odds, lay dormant, withered and weakened. Without jungles to negotiate, hungry predators to protect against, mountains to climb and rivers to cross, our body and mind is slowly changing, atrophying actually.

We are at an evolutionary junction and it is up to each of us, individually, to choose our path through the fork in the road.

In the challenges that currently face us all, our best bet is to fall back on our inner-ability to struggle, survive and thrive. Our modern day  jungles, and the predators that prowell them, are made of sidewalks, business suits, briefcases and congressional bills. These forests are full of those prowling for prey.

A friend on FaceBook yesterday reminded me of the quote. “It is the North Wind that made the Vikings.” It instantly made me think of Frederick Douglas, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress” and most certainly of John Page’s question to Thomas Jefferson at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?”

Thankfully, the skills and logic needed to survive and thrive are buried within each of us; they’ve been there since we started The Walk.