recalibrate your baseline

Many people intuit that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark.
But it's hard to pinpoint exactly where that rot lies.
The superorganism concept helps clarify this.
It is an emergent property that arises when humans self-organise around profit maximisation. When we optimise for this single metric, we do so at the expense of everything else, such as human wellbeing and ecological integrity.
As individuals, we don't have to subject ourselves to the misery the superorganism would compel us to.
We can take far better care of ourselves, by reducing our baseline demands to something more sensible and sophisticated.
Instead of getting our kicks by doom-scrolling online, we can pick up a book.
The energy it takes to create a book is far less than the energy required to create and sustain the technologies we need to doom-scroll.
And we can make our felt sense of wellbeing while reading a book equal to (if not, better than!) what it is while doom-scrolling.
Lowering your baseline is well within your grasp. You can empower yourself by doing so. And find yourself living a far more tranquil, content life amidst the modern madness we've been born into.
-----

-----
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:43 Nobody's coming to save you
01:07 Superorganism
02:25 Energy requirements for a good life
03:20 Baselines changing
04:40 Self-care
05:48 Stoicism
-----

-----
Socials:
Instagram - @jamesbranagan
Substack - https://jamesbranagan.substack.com/
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/james-branagan-749205208
Rumble - @JamesBranagan
Locals - https://newnaturalist.locals.com/
-----