Selection Pressure
Sean Moore
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
There’s a story worth telling. More of an anecdote, really, that one might overhear in the cell bio racket. It goes a little something like this: a doctor has a patient with HIV; they’ve been working to keep the white cell count up, the infection at bay. It’s doable, but there’s a certain inevitability. To stay on top of the virus, you have to stay one step ahead; every drug starts off mostly effective, but that effect inevitably diminishes over time. Escalation is a necessity, but with every new drug, a new resistance emerges. The body’s a war zone, and the only survivors are born killers.
It’s been a few years of treatment now, and the doctor is at the end of the rope. There are no more next-gen treatments; all the innovation has been used up – no next big thing, no new weapon. It appears that there is no hope. So instead the doctor does something unexpected. He takes his patient off all treatments. Cold turkey. Cessation of hostilities.
What a fucking joke, it seems. Giving a deadly virus full reign to run rampant through the body? May as well through the towel in entirely.
But an amazing thing happens during peacetime. What’s good for the virus when drugs are pulsing through the patient’s veins are poor qualities for thriving when the bullets have stopped flying. The game has changed, and survival instincts are traded in for traits that make the most of flourishing in the unfortunate host. And with that, hope emerges: the vulnerability to drugs can be exploited yet again.
We are all shaped by the environments we inhabit. In hostile environments we become acerbic, filled with venom; or nimble and alert, the mongoose in the cobra pit. In the pressure cooker, stress-filled time-bombs that college can frequently be, we become neurotic heads-down automatons, unable to look past the next due date for a moment to plan ahead. It’s all defuse, defuse, defuse.
It’s no surprise that people in menial jobs are so often menial people; it’s no surprise that DMV employees are some of the worst humans in the world. Survival is compulsory – wretched environments overwrite ordinary people in remarkable and horrible ways.
But it can work in our favor as well. If we want to forge ourselves into a better person, it can start by removing every anchor weighing you from reaching the heights you aspire to. Getting in shape doesn’t start with buying a pair of running shoes and an exercise book; it starts with getting rid of that 70" flatscreen in your living room and the sour cream and chive potato chips in your cupboard. Yes, the Nutty Bars too.
There’s no sense sitting alone, off in your world, pining about how you wish you were something, or someone. You are someone; there’s no reason you can’t be that someone else. Being that amazing person you want to be starts by doing something incredibly mundane. But that’s ninety percent of the battle - the start. Get out of the warzone, and you may be surprised by what qualities you never knew you had start to thrive.
Fortune favors the prepared.