Today is the safest day on Earth.
A Collaborative Exploration on Survival & Safety with Emilija
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood." - Marie Curie
"Today is the safest day on Earth."
That's one of the most enraging, conflicting, and absurd statements to make. Hearing it instantly brings up a billion solid arguments to refute it - war is nearby, poverty is engulfing, human lives are lost to hatred and suffering, caused by other humans. Saying it's "safe" feels like the absence of justice.
However, statistics tell a different story.
According to Max Roser, founder of Our World in Data, we are living through the safest and most prosperous period in recorded history. Global life expectancy has more than doubled over the past century. Child mortality has plummeted. Deaths from violence, natural disasters, and extreme poverty have all fallen sharply.
As Roser puts it: "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better."
All three statements can be true at once.
Awful things happen. So do better things. And so much still needs to improve.
Part of the confusion lies in the information we're shown - media has long leaned toward the worst, because the worst sells best.
Acknowledging the privilege
For those living in the rich, Western parts of the world, it's important to acknowledge that we're well-off.
We're taught to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first before helping others - and acknowledging the privilege of safety is the first thing we can do to help the rest of humanity out of trouble.
As long as we feel unsafe - and get panicky without transparently observing our immediate environment and seeing that it's actually okay - we are of limited use.
Limited in our ability to help others suffer less. Limited in our ability to solve our own remaining issues. Limited in our ability to help the rest of humanity thrive.
If any of us suddenly took a genuine interest in losing the roof over our heads, I'd argue it'd be extremely difficult to achieve. The social structure - and the genuine support of others - wouldn't easily let it happen.
So if the danger isn't really here, and death today is far more avoidable and postponed than it was centuries ago, then why does it still feel like danger is hovering right above us?
Human origins vs. human present
Our brain is designed to constantly scour for unsafety cues. Survival is its main job.
A constant influx of information - and the fact that the visibility of worldly chaos is now higher than it's ever been - really doesn't help. It fuels the same pathways that evolved to respond to danger and threat.
So we feel like we're in an unsafe environment.
We feel like we're under constant threat - even when, objectively, in our immediate surroundings, none of that danger is actually happening.
Nothing threatens our livelihood - but it truly, physiologically, feels like it does.
The safe environment came, but the brain remained the same. The wiring is not easy to change. It keeps playing the same melody it always has throughout our evolutionary past:
Scan for danger. Stay prepared. Be tense. The battle for survival is coming.
But the danger is illusionary. Look around you. The amount of stress and anxiety we feel is disproportionate to the amount of real danger around us.
So — what can one do?
Awareness.
Bringing awareness - real, objective observation of the immediate world around you - is half of the work. On the surface level, of course. But for the brain, it means starting to rewire pathways that were laid out over millions of years.
Ask yourself: Is it really unsafe - or is it just the past response?
Acknowledging safety is a blessing
This is the first time in our history where, in certain parts of the globe, we can truly feel safety. Experience it. It's the first time our species is stepping out of survival.
That is a huge reason for gratitude - and a massive privilege. One that must be acknowledged as such.
A deep compassion is born out of that awareness. It prompts us to do what it takes to help other humans - across the globe - get a chance to experience the same.
Feeling safe is also a precursor to truly feeling yourself, to letting those "higher-order" parts of the brain work effortlessly. It allows for focus on greater things. It facilitates a higher life quality, richer experiences, and deeper, more profound work. Acknowledging safety is the first step out of prolonged survival mode.
This awareness Emilija describes—the real, objective observation of what's actually happening around us—opens a doorway. But walking through that doorway reveals deeper territory.
Because even when we practice this awareness, even when we ask "Is it really unsafe or just a past response?"—something in us still braces. The body has its own intelligence, its own memory of what safety means.
The gap between knowing and feeling
You can know intellectually that today is the safest day in history while your nervous system still treats every email notification like a predator alarm. The statistics are true. The evolutionary wiring is also true. And somewhere between these truths, we live.
This isn't a problem to solve but a reality to navigate. The primitive brain and the modern mind are having different conversations about the same moment.
Watch what you're actually protecting: not your physical survival, but the survival of an identity, a story, a carefully constructed version of yourself. Your career anxieties, relationship fears, social media stress—none of these are saber-toothed tigers, yet they trigger the same ancient alarm systems.
When safety becomes its own prison
Here's the paradox Emilija's insights point toward: the safer we become externally, the more our minds manufacture internal chaos to justify evolutionary wiring that still expects danger.
If there's no real threat, the mind creates one. Political outrage becomes the predator. Social comparison becomes the competition for resources. Future scenarios that may never happen become today's emergency.
We've replaced external dangers with internal dramatizations. This isn't pathology—it's biology meeting modernity without an instruction manual.
The practice of presence in safety
The awareness Emilija describes becomes transformative when it moves beyond analysis to direct experience. Not just asking "Is this really dangerous?" but actually feeling what's here now.
Presence: noticing what's actually happening in your immediate environment without the story your mind adds to it. The temperature of the air. The sound of breathing. The fact that right now, in this moment, nothing is actually wrong.
This isn't positive thinking or gratitude practice. It's the radical act of inhabiting reality rather than fleeing into mental projections of what might go wrong.
Living the privilege consciously
Emilija's point about privilege carries even deeper implications. Those of us in safe circumstances have a responsibility not just to help others reach safety, but to actually inhabit the safety we have.
Because unused safety becomes wasted opportunity. Privilege honored only in theory but not lived becomes its own form of waste.
When you stop leaving the present moment to chase dangers that exist only in projection, something opens. The "higher-order" brain functions Emilija mentions don't just facilitate better work—they facilitate more authentic presence with what matters.
But safety isn't something you achieve through analysis or historical perspective. It's something you recognize when you stop leaving the present moment to chase dangers that exist only in projection.
The safest place isn't the safest time in history. It's here. Now. This breath. This moment where, when you stop the mental commentary about what's wrong or what might go wrong, you discover what's actually available.
Gratefully,
Tuna & Emilija
Perspective First & Emilija's Substack
The Practice Continues
A collaborative exploration of how statistical reality meets lived experience. Where data informs but presence transforms.
Reference:
Max Roser (2022) - "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better." Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
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