The Mammal Project
Embracing Our Most Basic Identity
When I ponder how we arrived here, in the midst of the capitalist ecocide and with human extinction becoming a greater possibility with each passing year, I see a number of threads. But none more clear than this: The capitalist ecocide was built on the Cartesian split. We are animals, first and foremost. Forgetting that has had catastrophic consequences.
How we SEE ourselves is one of the pillars of our behavior. Of what behaviors we allow in our culture. When we turned from the organic world towards the mechanical, we lost our way.
I want to turn my consciousness back towards my mammalian heritage, and fully embody it. But I am not even sure what that entails.
How might our thoughts about ourselves change if we really embrace our genetic heritage? What does it mean to be a mammal? What does it mean to be one species on a planet with over a trillion species?
I wanted to remind myself of this. So I looked for something that I could use as a label for myself. There was nothing. The industrialized world is flooded with graphics. With tee-shirts covered in trite sayings. But nothing like this.
So I am going to produce a prototype. Not just as a cool tee-shirt, but as a prompt to dive deep into these questions and find a way to articulate any answers I may find. This is my first small step. This is the anti-AI.
Thank you, Annabel.
I often feel that one of the deepest problems of modern life is the way we have come to see ourselves as separate from the living world rather than part of it. Your reflection feels like an invitation to remember embodiment, relationship, vulnerability, and belonging again.
I also appreciate that you approach this as a genuine inquiry rather than a fixed answer. “What does it mean to fully embody our mammalian heritage?” is such a powerful question.