In 1860, more than 15,000 people gathered in Melbourne to watch British explorers start to trek across the continent. A year later, almost everyone had died of starvation, even though they had plenty of food in their bellies. What happened? After running into Aboriginal people, they observed them making cakes from a water fern called nardoo. The men eagerly copied them and began making their own. Unfortunately, raw nardoo flour is toxic. It prevents your body from absorbing nourishment. The aboriginal people knew this and washed the flour with water. The British explorers did not.
We like to think that humans are uniquely intelligent and this is how we ascended to the top of the food chain. But what actually has made us successful over millions of years is that we are exceptionally good at cooperating with one another. We have been able to survive on almost every continent of the planet because we work together, share knowledge, and teach skills. The anthropologist Joseph Henrich calls this the collective brain.
For most of human history, nearly every skill traveled that way. You didn’t set out to learn how to cook, give birth, or survive — you just grew up inside of it and learned through watching others. By the time you had a baby of your own, you’d already seen (and maybe even helped) take care of other infants. And there was typically someone next to you, ready to teach you or take the baby off your hands. Your community was especially invested in your learning these skills, because everyone’s survival was intertwined. In the past few generations, that system has come undone. We now are more likely to live alone, away from family, and to have fewer connections than people before us.
Technology has also made this more complicated — we have more access to information, so there are now hundreds of ways to do something as simple as helping your child sleep. Instead of relying on a community to support you and learning from others around you, you take a baby sleep course at 2 a.m., alone, while banging your head against a wall. We must independently discover and choose the “right way” to do everything.
Most of us are now our own financial advisers, nutritionists, and on-call pediatricians. And when you need help beyond the internet, you can pay for it. What used to be community knowledge is now sold back to us. No wonder we are exhausted. We were never supposed to make this many decisions or fill so many roles in one household. When you lived in a community, no one person was responsible for cooking, cleaning, working, and taking care of everyone. You split responsibilities.
Of course, we outsource things in modern times — I certainly don’t grow my own food, or make my own clothes and I pay someone to watch my kid. But I’m still the one weighing my options, making the choice and then coordinating it all. And if something goes wrong, it’s my fault for making the wrong choice. When we lived in villages, we didn’t just share labor, we also shared responsibility.
We keep treating that tiredness like a personal failing. We believe if we had more discipline or ate more protein or learned to time-block our day, we could solve this problem. But maybe you’re not doing anything wrong. Maybe you’re tired because you’re doing alone what was once the job of a whole community.
So what is the point of me telling you this? I’m not here to suggest you move in with your extended family or start a commune. But I’m hoping this history lesson can help you take the pressure off. Maybe it can help you treat yourself with a little more compassion. I want you to notice how much of your exhaustion comes from trying to individually manage and become an expert in everything. And then see what opportunities exist in your community to share.
Can you set up a carpool with other families in the area? Can you and your friends set up a life admin night, where you sit together to do annoying tasks (like taxes or calling your bank)? Or you may need to start with the smaller step, such as just making an effort to get to know people in your local community. None of these will fix everything, but investing in your community is something that pays back dividends in the future.
One member of the trek across Australia survived in 1861. Near death, he was found by the same Aboriginal people, who took him in and fed him for months until he was rescued. He never figured out how to make nardoo bread, but he found people who knew how to do it. You can do the same thing in your community.
