It's in our genes

Listening to the "On Being" podcast this morning I heard a conversation with Agustin Fuentes, a biological and evolutionary anthropologist at Princeton. The interview was wide-ranging, from "messy," misunderstood evolution to how our human social needs created the perfect environment for the spread of Covid. That caught my attention.

Homo sapiens developed social structures that encourage interaction because a constant churn of relationships and interplay is vitally important to our mental and physical health. Think about how your everyday activities contribute to that churn: a quick conversation at the grocery store, a chat with friends (with hugs), meetings or conversations at work, a shopping trip, a sporting event or a movie, meals with family. In normal times such events would be taken for granted. 

We don’t sit down every evening and count up the number of times we spoke to someone in person, though over the last year, for many of us, that number could be zero. In the last three weeks the closest interaction I’ve had was with my Costco shopper.

Typically I see my daughter and family every two weeks or so. We often go for walks. Over the summer we shared several outdoor meals, sitting at least six feet apart. In the last nine months I received one careful hug from my daughter. My son-in-law maintains a mindful distance, and my granddaughter, who used to greet me with a hug and a kiss on the lips, now stands distant. I wonder how this separation will affect our future relationship.

The virus took advantage of our human need for companionship and interchanges, and stole a year of normality from all of us, along with nearly 300,000 lives. Will Covid continue to affect us once a vaccine is available to all? My guess is yes; work from home is an obvious example but changes resulting from Covid will be broader and deeper than we currently imagine. 

Nevertheless we are social beings, and we’ll find ways to meet up and play together no matter what happens. It’s in our genes and in our hearts. And I am content with that.