The Urge

Man in his natural state, upon reaching adulthood, is struck with the urge: the urge to travel, to struggle, to conquer, and ultimately triumph (or die trying).

Migration is a goal of the young.

To be young is to struggle: against nature, against society, against himself, against the elements, against hunger, against failure.

By Snowy plover girl at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0,

To throw himself against the mountains, against the storms. To track and kill his own food. To survive against bears, monsters, enemies. To forge a path in the wilderness, chop down trees, build his own home.

Lion, wolf, or elephant, the young male is unlikely to stay in the pack of his birth. He must leave his mother’s side and forage in the wilderness until he has the strength to lead the pack or found his own.

Biological dispersal:

Some organisms are motile throughout their lives, but others are adapted to move or be moved at precise, limited phases of their life cycles. This is commonly called the dispersive phase of the life cycle. The strategies of organisms’ entire life cycles often are predicated on the nature and circumstances of their dispersive phases. …

Due to population density, dispersal may relieve pressure for resources in an ecosystem, and competition for these resources may be a selection factor for dispersal mechanisms.^[14]

Dispersal of organisms is a critical process for understanding both geographic isolation in evolution through gene flow and the broad patterns of current geographic distributions (biogeography).

A distinction is often made between natal dispersal where an individual (often a juvenile) moves away from the place it was born, and breeding dispersal where an individual (often an adult) moves away from one breeding location to breed elsewhere.^[1]

Modern man, in modern cities, is deprived of struggle. The land is already cleared. The houses are already built. The food arrives pre-killed in the grocery store. The map has already been drawn and your GPS tells you where to go.

We have made ourselves a paradise and find it wanting.

Like a rooster told not to crow, modern man flings himself at a structure with nothing but ersatz struggles: video games, online flame wars, antifa larping. We turn to empty screeching to make ourselves feel like we’re doing something good.

But for those who have just arrived, getting to the city alone is a success.