For greater well-being, we must adapt our modern lifestyle and live more in harmony with our natural and evolutionary selves.
While giving many benefits, aspects of modern society can also be harmful to our physical, mental, and cultural health. We can overcome many of these detriments if we better understand and express our primal self, which is largely encoded into our DNA.
On the Origin of Being outlines the misalignments between our genetic design and modern lifestyle that reduce our well-being and even cause disease. Jenny Powers, PhD in immunology, and Luke Comer, author and producer, pay homage to Charles Darwin by investigating the evolution of many human behaviors. They identify the origins of these behaviors in the single-cell organisms of billions of years ago and then trace them through primates, hominoids, and up the evolutionary chain to modern humans. They then demonstrate how to realign our behaviors to enjoy more vital, loving, and robust lives here and now.
Book one of this three-part series addresses four behaviors that are most significant to our health: sleep, nutrition, work and rest, and our relationship with nature.
Jenny Powers
Jenny Powers has embodied many incarnations in her life: an athlete, a scientist, a wife, a mom, and a writer. Each one led her closer to discovering her genuine self. Collegiate basketball trained her to push her body beyond physical limits. Earning her PhD in immunology taught her to push her mind past mental barriers and soak in how research works. Becoming a mom caused a tectonic shift in her identity, as she learned what is truly important in life, which included finally pursuing her passion for writing.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to combine many of her “incarnations” into one purpose, Jenny researched and wrote On the Origin of Being. She is continually toppled over in awe by the research and discovery of human nature and humbled by the study of our amazing ancestors. She lives in Colorado with her human and furry family.
Luke Comer
Luke Comer is an independent producer, writer, and director who owns all of his own projects and works in different mediums. He was the author of the novel, Yoke of Wind; the creator and director of the multimedia production, “The Portal,” which toured the country for several years; the producer and director of the Arise Music and Arts Festival that took place in Colorado for ten years; and the originator and conceptualizer for the book, On the Origin of Being. He is currently in production on his next book, Sapient: How to Design the Optimum Meal. In the background, he also works on another series of books called The First Supper, subtitled How Evolution Designed You to Eat. He is also one of the original investors in “Meow Wolf.”
He also works towards providing “freedom of assembly” in the state of Colorado for artistic and alternative cultures that, he knows from experience, are persecuted by the government without cause, other than their own prejudice.
He was born and raised in small towns in Alabama, where he ran around with his buddies, building forts, racing bikes, throwing mudpies, and always playing football or other games. He loved books, drew pictures, and played drums in rock and roll bands. Later, he was shipped to prep school where he felt imprisoned and bided his time reading books.
He soon dropped out, traveled through Southeast Asia for many months, and soon thereafter attended Oberlin College, where he studied as many things as he could. After college, he ran 30-day, therapeutic wilderness
courses for adjudicated teenagers from Philly for several years. After some time in the corporate world, he moved to Boulder, CO, where he supported his climbing and skiing habit with his own restaurant, called “Native,” serving organic and nourishing fast food. In his late 20s and early 30s, he faced a crisis in life where he suffered from insomnia, senseless anxiety, and other maladies—but then dedicated himself to healing, experimenting with many different modalities: yoga, psychotherapy, psychedelics, nutrition, trance dancing, and festival culture.
He always engaged in multiple forms of outdoor sports and adventures, attaining upper levels of expertise in white-water paddling, rock climbing, and snow skiing—as well as multiple ocean sports, including
windsurfing and kitesurfing.
He splits his time between Boulder, CO; Cabarete, Dominican Republic; and New York City.
