The Instinct We Forgot

Why I no longer do one-stop grocery shops and what it taught me about instinct.

Do you have a little 'hunter gatherer' in you?

Much of what we do is driven by learned patterns and behavioural instincts. What drives us, and how hard it drives, depends on how long we’ve repeated the pursuit.

My days of the one-stop supermarket shop are long gone. That dreaded monthly mission of packed trolleys, packed aisles, packed patience, it feels like a distant memory, filed somewhere between gummy bears and sachets of powdered soup.

These days, my procurement is more... instinctual. A carefully curated mix of drive-by detours, online orders, and the occasional out-of-the-way adventure. I've started calling it my hunter-gatherer phase. Foraging what appeals to me, when it does, from wherever it lives.

At first, I said it in jest. But then I started to wonder, what primal instinct was I really tapping into?

And for those who still do the supermarket sweep, how easy—too easy—has variety become? We’re inundated with choice. Everything, all the time. No natural rhythm. No waiting. Just abundance on demand. It feeds the overindulgence baked into our modern lives.

There was a time when we swayed with the seasons. When nourishment came when the earth offered it. And now, we wonder why our cycles are out of sync. Why our cravings feel louder than our clarity. Why we’ve forgotten the quiet art of introspection.

This isn’t just about food. It’s about how we live.

How we remember.

How we come back to ourselves.