Yesterday, I had a lot more time to think than usual. I had to be up at 3:30am in NYC for a 10:00am meeting in Iowa. I got home around 1:00am today. In this sleep deprived and highly conscious state I convinced myself that that our entire universe had to be created by a form of life similar to us. These superior life forms most likely destroyed not just their planet, but their entire dimension and created our universe via the implosion of their own. Taking this musing as Ω and reverse engineering my perceptions from there to here it opened my eyes to possibilities I am surprised I could not see before.

Before we destroy our universe, I think it’s safe to assume we will have already destroyed our home-planet in some kind of typical Hollywood scenario. Rise of the machines, nuclear winter, overwhelming amounts of garbage, cataclysmic natural event or whatever it is – we are left with a few options.

1. Stay on the surface and die.
2. Create space ships and fly away.
3. Create Arks and head out to sea.
4. Create a modern Atlantis and take refuge under the sea.
5. Artificially modify our DNA to rapidly adapt to any new environment.
6. Ping me if you think of something else, I’ll add it in.

We are the only species of mammal to have a space-program, and submarines. As a race, consciously or unconsciously it’s clear that we as a species are very aware of these eventualities. Even if we all lived in total harmony with nature, we would still be at risk – just like the dinosaurs. The catch-22 is that if we advance our technology and society beyond the level of balance with nature to where we are able to create underwater cities, and space ships that can transport our race – we run the risk of destroying our planet and ourselves in the process if we do it in an irresponsible manner.

So if we all know this is what is going to happen, how do we decide who gets saved and who gets cut? Is this the subtle motivator that drives us to be successful beyond our needs? In nature, there are no billionaires. Most other mammals are pretty content if they are able to feed their offspring and exist comfortably. We intellectual humans, on the other hand, have it ingrained within us to strive for more than we need. We create companies, armies, gangs, governments, markets, financial structures, and religions to elevate ourselves in importance and value above others to build power, prestige and affiliation. As a collective whole, we are all secretly driven by a hyper-rational fear of the fact that living off nature, and being one with the land will really just leave us behind as one of the dinosaurs who gets burned up when the meteors strike.

This deep insecurity creates the drive to hustle.