Making Connections

On innate human nature and 3 nonfiction books I can’t stop thinking about

When I walk into a bookstore, I tend to gravitate toward the nonfiction area, despite slightly favoring fiction in my reading habits. While my stats show that I read roughly two times the amount of fiction that I do nonfiction, it’s the latter that stays with me the most.

Of course, there’s been notable fiction I’ve read over the years and I can remember certain novels for the feelings they gave me. But it’s the factual words that I return to in my mind, again and again, to help me make sense of the world.

Something I’ve come to really appreciate about the nonfiction reading experience is when my brain makes a connection between what I'm currently reading and a book I’ve already read. Even better when those connections spread between multiple books, like a spiderweb connected in various ways. 

I think what excites me about making these connections is that I'm learning and retaining new information, but in a way that is completely unique to me. For if someone were to read the exact same books I did, even in the same order, context matters. Our life experience informs our reading experience more than we sometimes give it credit for. To that end, no one’s reading experience is alike. It’s as if every individual’s reading journey is like a snowflake—completely and utterly unique. 

So in the spirit of those connections, I’m going to discuss a thread that I’ve seen between three books I keep thinking about: Sapiens, Joyful, and The Comfort Crisis. 

I often reference Sapiens as a favorite nonfiction, for it was so pivotal in my reading journey. It’s the cornerstone book I find myself making connections to, again and again. Case in point with Joyful and The Comfort Crisis. The thing all three share is this respect for innate human instincts, the fact that we are, at our very core, animals. And these books remind us of that.

Sapiens

The most cut and dry, this is literally a history book of our species and how we evolved as homo sapiens to operate in today’s modern society. The crux of it is that we are the most advanced species of the homo genus¹ due to our brain capacity. That makes us unique, but even still we have our limits. We’re only meant to operate with a group size of ~150 or less yet in today’s world we organize on a much, much larger scale. Think cities, corporations, countries, etc. Yuval Noah Harari discusses the concept of “myths” or made up ideas such as money, religion, and more that we organize around to make this happen.

This book really began the reshaping of my worldview as I know it. A dear friend of mine would often tease me when she saw me reading this, calling it my “meaning of life” book. Alas, I never thought of it as such because it’s a history book, not a self-help book. But alas, here I am several years after reading it and still thinking about it. You could say it did, in a way, become my “meaning of life” book because it spawned a new way of questioning that inevitably led me to the place I’m at today.

Before Sapiens, I don't think I had read a history book since college but this didn’t feel like history when I read it. It felt like I had been navigating my way through a dark cave my whole life, thinking I knew quite well where I was. And then someone handed me a flashlight—not enough to light up the whole cave, but it exposed things here and there that made me, quite literally, look at the place in a whole new light. 

It was around the time I read Sapiens that my idea for The Conscious Consumer began to develop.² I read Sapiens smack in the middle of 2020, set against the backdrop of a global pandemic, after my beloved grandfather suddenly passed away and George Floyd was killed. It had been on my shelf for a while, and it took prodding from my brother to finally read it. He urged me this was an especially good time to read it given the state of our world. And boy was he right. 

Joyful

Based on premise alone—“a groundbreaking investigation that turns everything we know about happiness on its head”—this stands in stark contrast to Sapiens. I never would have expected to draw a connection between these two a year later, but that’s the beauty of the reading experience. 

I loved this book for so many reasons. I first discovered it via influencer Grace Atwood via her sister who is a textiles designer. Author Ingrid Fetell Lee argues that we can live a more joyful life by putting ourselves in environments surrounded with objects that are designed to evoke joy. She walks us through the ten “aesthetics of joy” she’s identified for injecting joy into one’s daily life. The design of the spaces we spend our time in is imperative to this thesis. So while on the surface this might seem like a decor book, it’s so much more than that. It’s self-improvement, history, and psychology all mixed in one. 

A thread I observed throughout is how many of her joy aesthetics are rooted in human nature, or back to our animal instincts. One that sticks out in my memory is the concept of the landscape and bringing nature into our homes. The landscape painting or photo is calming to us because it evokes a sense of security. As sapiens we evolved to feel safest when we could see an oncoming threat or spot danger a mile away, so we like vast, open spaces. More obvious, because we evolved outdoors among other plants and animals, bringing a sense of that nature indoors has a positive effect. She references studies that show even fake plants, for example, can calm the nervous system.

I read this book the first year I bought my home and have kept it in mind ever since. As my home evolves, this often pops into my head as a reminder to consider my human instincts when making design choices. And more importantly, to sit outside on my back porch and take in the sounds, smells, and feelings of nature.

The Comfort Crisis

If Sapiens was the flashlight in the cave, The Comfort Crisis was the headlamp in the tent. This is the most recent of these books, both by publish date and read date. While its permanence hasn’t proved itself to me in the same length that Sapiens & Joyful have, I feel confident that it won’t go away anytime soon. It’s been four months since I’ve read it and I'm still thinking about it.

At its very core, the central idea of this book is that we need to remove ourselves from our daily conveniences and comforts we often take for granted to tap into our innate human instincts and remember being “uncomfortable.” Because as an animal species, we evolved to seek comfort. But comfort thousands and thousands of years ago looked a lot different than it does today.

Before furniture or temperature-controlled spaces filled with comfy furniture existed, we were resting and sleeping on the uneven ground and trying to regulate our body temperature in whatever means we could. So essentially, author Michael Easter argues, our inclination to seek comfort today—be it fast food, binging Netflix, scrolling Instagram, or staying inside—is actually doing us more harm than good. We’ve overcorrected on comfort. 

It’s obvious why this one draws a connection to Sapiens, for it’s a how-to and why-to guide on returning to our most natural form, as best we can among the modern society we’ve constructed for ourselves.

I was first introduced to this book by Leslie Stephens’ Morning Person newsletter back in 2021, so the idea has had time to gel with me. One of the key concepts Easter explores and that Leslie highlights in this issue is a “magic number” for time spent in nature: 20 minutes a day, 5 hours a week, and 3 days at once to experience maximum benefits.

I haven’t acted on the “three day effect” yet but the concept of getting outside and staying outside has stayed with me. I treat my (mostly) daily walks as a cure-all and stress reliever and try to get outside for longer on the weekends. I'm a firm believer in the healing power of nature and this book drives that home.

Making Connections to Our Human Instincts

As these books demonstrate, this idea of recognizing and honoring our innate human instincts is one I keep coming back to. 

Sapiens shows us that the way we live today is not natural. In fact, it’s actually against our human instinct in a major way. Joyful and The Comfort Crisis give us tools to guide us back to those instincts.

We have evolved to be intellectually capable of more than any other species known to mankind. It’s a miracle, a gift, but a powerful one at that. It’s important that when we experience difficult feelings and emotions, to pause and remember, we are animals. 

While this idea might not resonate with you, I find it comforting. There’s a reason my brain is working the way it does, a reason I'm reacting to the situation at hand. And I can use this instinct, this innate human nature, as a compass to navigate my way back. To get curious about my feelings or responses to things, treating them as keys to that humanness, rather than something I must judge or evaluate. Keys to the unconscious, or instinctual, mind if you will. 

In closing this out, I'm reminded of the colloquialism “you’re only human.”

This phrase, as stated in this article, “is delegated exclusively to contexts in which man's nature is seen as weak, frail, error-prone, et cetera.” They argue that in using this phrase, our society has adopted a negative view of our humanness when this phrase is actually objective by definition.

So let's rebrand it. To be “only human” isn’t bad, nor is it good. It just simply is. 

1. Aside from us Sapiens, Neanderthals are the most commonly known species of the genus Homo. They’re very close relatives (so close, in fact, that a family friend had a small % of Neanderthal on her 23 & Me results!), but their brain capacity didn’t come close to that of Sapiens.

2. If you’ve read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, this was the idea-visiting-me moment. I’m lucky that 3 years later, once I decided to take it seriously, this idea hadn't “moved on" to someone else.