I know this is cliche to say, but humans in the 21st century are deeply alienated from nature. I left my apartment today to go for a walk, and right as I left it started raining. It wasn't a heavy rain, but the high wind exaggerated the rain's strength. I was maybe a hundred feet from the apartment when I considered turning back as I realized the rain was about to ramp up. Instead, I decided to push forward; a little rain can't hurt me. That moment's hesitation caused me to think: how many people living in this day and age would make the choice to turn back? If you could put every person on Earth in the scenario I was in, I'd wager at least half would decide not to continue the walk. Now, to be fair, it's just a walk. Why walk in the rain when you can just wait until the rain passes? It's just a walk; a little exercise isn't immediately important. But then again, it's just some rain. So many people would rush to shelter than braving a little cold and wet weather. Our ancestors would laugh at how wimpy we are. Think about what it was like for them. I'm writing this at about nine p.m. The wind outside is gusting hard. I'm here, laying down on a couch, in a insulated house, with lights that come on and off with the flick of a finger. My ancestors would be huddled in a tent or a cave. They'd have to endure the dark and cold all night. And the next night. And the night after that. For them, there are no walls. There are no carpets, or beds, or tables, or even chairs. We all know what it's like to sit and lay on the ground outside. Imagine that is pretty much, aside from maybe sitting on a log or a big stone, all you can ever do. These are obvious facts but they're nonetheless profound if you're able to imagine at least on some level what it's truly like to live so utterly dependent on nature. It's tough. Every aspect of your life is affected. I imagine most of your life is spent dealing with and worrying about the weather. Even the mere regular shift from day to night is a difficult, important occurrence. You know, now that I think about it, our ancestors probably wouldn't be so quick to laugh at our aversion to rain. I mean, they'd still think we are wimps. But they'd also understand that for them even minor rain is a fairly big deal. What if they're caught out hunting and they're hit with a sudden downpour? They can't run back to a house or car which is completely cut off from the rain and wind. If they're lucky they'd find a big tree to sit under. But a tree doesn't really shield you from the wind. And even a big tree doesn't always fully shield you from rain either. If their clothes got wet while trying to find shelter, they'd have to sit on the cold, wet ground in their cold, wet clothes, sometimes for hours until the rain passed. Rain is no joke for them. For all the modern struggles we have living in the era we do, at least we don't have these kinds of old struggles. Well, most of us don't. Keep in mind, homeless people still have to deal with, to some extent, these hardships. I wasn't really intending to write about homelessness when I started this, but it's something that inevitably came to mind.