Huffington Magazine Issue 20 | Page 32

Voices There was no estate planning in the Paleolithic Era. There were no retirement homes. Long-term thinking extended to seasons, not much beyond. And our reaction to perils in the modern world remains bounded by this biology—if we let it. We are aroused by immediate threats, although we tend to forget them as soon as they subside. Long-term threats that don’t rear up on hind limbs and wave their claws in our faces today may not only be easy for us to ignore, they may be hard for us to take seriously. Our perspective remains the endowment of the savannah, and the simple and immediate challenges of survival. We tend to use “short-sighted” as a pejorative term, but it is the native state of our species. And that may count among the greatest challenges to our survival now because that perspective and our Paleolithic time horizon are obsolete. We are choosing to do nothing about some of the most significant health perils we can see, because we forget them as soon as the acute threat concludes. And we are managing not to see some of the health perils we DAVID KATZ HUFFINGTON 10.28.12 might otherwise do something about. In both cases, time is conspiring against us. Bullets are an example. Bullets fly fast, and we can readily see both cause and effect. People get shot, and often die. But the crises related to guns come and go, like those fleet predators that once We are stalked us, and we choosing to move on. We see the problem, but our mem- do nothing ory is too short and our about some concerns too parochial. of the most Until we get shot, it’s significant somebody else’s probhealth perils lem. Once we get shot, we can see, it’s too late. because Baloney—of the figuwe forget rative and literal vathem as rieties alike—poses a soon as the problem in the other acute threat direction. In a society long since mired in epi- concludes.” demic obesity, “bad” foods do more damage than bullets, but do it in slow motion. Since the causal connection between any given donut, soda, or hour spent on the couch, and bad health outcomes stretches over a span of years, we can readily overlook it. It’s just a bit too slow to see the dots connect, so we ignore