Once upon an after work day, these thoughts bubbled into my mind.
-Cue dramatic flash back sounds-
If we humans are to evolve and get better through natural selection, then the aging process would seem to make sense to me.
Let me explain.
We are born mostly helpless. We grow up learning from our environment the rules and how to survive.
We hit puberty and now we blossom.
This means our attractiveness increases as we prepare to mate. To find the best quality match we mature in order to keep the best genes in the future gene pool. Each match making, in theory, creating an evolutionary improvement.
We are given a certain time to execute this. A window of opportunity. For women, this time seems more marked than men. Men remain overall stronger for longer. They take care of the tribe. Go hunting, to provide the resources of the family; so it makes sense that they have a longer time to procreate and spread the possibility of improving the future gene pool.
Ok women, you are then being phased into a new role. So the hormones that rose to the occasion in puberty, now bid farewell. Their time to shine has come to an end and this leaves us losing some of that lustre that made us appear to be glowing and healthy. Now, we women have to work more to maintain or even keep some version of this healthy state. This state that was so abundant in our child bearing years.
Nevertheless it is possible.
As we are replaced by the newer, more vibrant set of women entering their adult years; we notice a lot of change in our bodies and overtime the entire landscape of our lives.
This is also true for men whose chronological age increases.
They need to work more to maintain once vibrant health.
For both women and men the experience is different and our modern way of living and rushing around does not support a graceful hand over into our less reproductive years.
Women’s general decline often seems to start earlier in their 40s and for some in their 30s. While our male counterparts seem to last more into their 50s and 60s before marked decline is noticed.
Some among us don’t make it through the transition. As evolutionarily we would have given the best of ourselves and now it’s time to become defunct. Those who live through the process have a vast base of knowledge to pass on so the next generations can learn and become more resilient, stronger and more capable of surviving.
All this is my observation.
But now I wonder, with the increase in women having children later and later in their lives if in our future there will be a reset or lengthening of the women’s reproductive window.
Perhaps in many multiple generations.
Science is already bringing this possibility closer.
Will we naturally evolve to select for it as well?
Or will we force nature’s hand?
Or is there a symbiosis with nature taking cues from our leanings and vice versa?
I’m just curious.
Will we live long enough to get an answer?
It is interesting to think that our collective decisions will inform what the future outcomes of the human race will be. Which means my decisions and yours matters. Tiny shifts, compounding over time to write the story.
So... What story do we want to tell?
What do we want life in the future to look like?
And...What are we doing today to make it true?