I have recently returned from Shetland and one of the stand out moments of that trip was observing a literal cliffside city of gannets numbering in the thousands. Their existence predates recorded history and possibly even predates human presence in those isles. Preying on fish might seem a simple life and pointless life to many in our species, but it is certainly a more long-term sustainable one than trying to force civilizational evolution. It also works because the gannets feel no need to question themselves. They act as evolution fated them to, and can not only fly but dive to depths unfathomable by most non-aquatic creatures to hunt.

So much of talk about philosophy extols its virtues as providing a way to transcend or overcome one’s supposedly base nature. This rests on the assumption that one can take the idea of a future version of themselves (something that does not yet exist), and project upon it a form of sculpting that will bring this imaginary being into reality. While I do not deny that one can intentionally and unintentionally influence their future self, the result will inevitably be subjected to the far more powerful forces of nature and circumstance (what the ancients called fate). This means that the imaginary future you see as the target for meticulous construction will never exist. It bears as much relation to your present self as a fictional character does.

Intellect can of course be honed. But I feel science, history, anthropology, and art is more effective at this. Especially as it does not automatically contain a mission like most of philosophy does. But this is not to say philosophy and its quest for the ‘good life’ is useless. I would simply rather reinterpret this from the academically focused ‘life of the mind’ into something else: the life of the instinct.

Philosophy’s true utility in an era where science has stolen so much of its former thunder is one of learning how to think differently. In the Anthropocene, this can mean learning to deprogram one’s sense of complacent entitlement towards humanity’s place in the natural world. A philosophy that reminds you of the precarious and ever-changing nature of everything is one that is enabling you, despite your domesticated circumstances, to be readier at the re-activation of instinct. And this, in turn, could increase the odds of acting correctly not through thought, but via unthought. A reconnection with atrophied instincts.

Instinctual behavior is usually rational behavior. It may be short sighted, and it might not always match with the situation, but it is always understandable and increasingly neglected in our overly-domesticated world. Philosophy as a whole is complicit in this domestication, which leads to its growing irrelevance. But it could be the opposite. It could be the key to breaking our disconnect with our evolutionary instincts. When we remind ourselves that so much of the ether we are surrounded with is socially constructed (i.e. fake) and that our animal nature is always waiting below the surface, we reconnect with the ability to act without thought and respond without half-measured hesitations.

Everything organizational is a pyramid scheme. The point of civilization is to make the pyramid scheme last long enough that multiple generations can avoid its collapse before the unlucky one gets settled with inevitable entropy. But it will collapse. When this happens it is those more in touch with the natural instincts that build the next order. In addition to natural inclination, I suspect that it is also those who used philosophy to gain some distance from civilization who will have this advantage. So it is not philosophy that enables us to ‘transcend’ our natural selves that will be of use, but philosophy that re-engages us with nature which enables us to transcend the limitations of presentism and domesticity.

One interesting and newly discovered fact about gannets is that after their communities were ravaged by avian flu in 2022-3, the survivors often had their irises turn black. This apparently has not ruined their eyesight. It merely serves as a striking visual marker of survival. A black metal reminder of nature’s ruthless and ever-churning gauntlet.