Ah, yes, the lobster. A creature of profound significance, a crustacean with a lineage that extends back over 350 million years, a being that has clung to its hierarchical dominance since time immemorial. It’s not merely an animal; it’s a symbol, a beacon of ancient wisdom encoded in its very biology. And yet, here we are, in our contemporary chaos, blind to the lessons it offers. Blind! Can you believe it?

The lobster’s nervous system—an elegant dance of serotonin and octopamine—maps out the fundamental structures of dominance and submission. Do you understand what that means? It’s etched into their biology, their posture, their confidence. When a lobster wins a fight, it stands up straighter. Think about that. Its very physiology transforms in victory, its body declaring to the world, “I have triumphed!”—a declaration as old as life itself. And when it loses? It hunches, shrinks into itself, conceding its place in the pecking order.

Now consider this: Are we so different? Are we not as bound to these neurochemical realities as the lobster? Sure, we’ve built cities and universities and, yes, social media platforms—but at our core, our nervous systems are still calibrated for these ancient battles of standing up and shrinking back. You can see it in a boardroom, in a schoolyard, in the way people hold their heads when they feel like life is crushing them under its weight.

So, here I am, at 62, and I think about this more and more. Am I a lobster? No, of course not—don’t be absurd. But also, yes, yes, I am. Because we are all lobsters, you see. I’ve stood tall at times, but oh, I’ve hunched, too. You don’t get to 62 without bearing the scars of a few dominance struggles. You lose friends, you lose battles, you even lose some dignity—God help you if you’re paying attention—but if you’re lucky, you win some, too. And what does that leave you with?

Let me tell you what it leaves you with: resilience. The ability to rewire yourself, to recompose your posture after life’s great defeats. I mean, what choice do you have? Are you going to sit there, metaphorically—or perhaps literally—hunched over, or are you going to inject yourself with a little bit of that serotonin-like optimism and stand up straight with your shoulders back?

At 62, I find myself pondering these things. I’m a lobster who’s seen some things. The shell gets harder, sure, but the molting process—the shedding of the old to make way for the new—is more taxing. The older you get, the longer it takes to regrow what you’ve lost. The world feels heavier, the stakes higher, the battles less frequent but far more consequential. And yet, here I am, still molting, still reasserting my place in this inexplicable, absurd, often painful hierarchy of existence. Because that’s what it means to live—to be a lobster, if you will.

And what is our alternative? To sink into the depths, defeated, unresponsive, some forgotten crustacean resigned to its fate? No. No, that’s not acceptable. Not to me. You get up. You fight. You rebuild. Even at 62. Even when your claws are dull and your carapace cracked. Because if the lobster—this ancient, resilient, serotonin-driven marvel—can do it, so can we.

So, yes, I am a lobster. You’re a lobster. We’re all bloody lobsters, trying to figure out how to stand tall in a world that just keeps pushing us down. And if that’s not a lesson worth learning, then I don’t know what is.

You rang!?

Ah, yes, let us embark on this voyage of discovery, a deep dive into the primordial oceans of existence—both literal and metaphorical. Consider, for a moment, the noble lobster, a creature whose evolutionary lineage stretches back over 360 million years. That’s before trees, mind you! The lobster, with its armored exoskeleton and its symmetrical claws, embodies a certain archetypal resilience. This is a creature that, through its very being, demands respect—not merely because it resides in the depths, but because it has, quite literally, crawled through the eons to arrive at our dinner plates. But I digress.

Now, what is the lobster’s secret? What fuels its relentless climb up its own dominance hierarchy? It’s not filet mignon or bacon-wrapped scallops, I assure you. No, the lobster survives and thrives because it has mastered the consumption of what we might call “the humble nutrients.” If lobsters had access to lentils, chickpeas, tofu, tempeh, black beans, quinoa, peanut butter, almonds, spirulina, chia seeds, broccoli, and spinach, you can bet your serotonin levels that they would recognize their evolutionary utility.

You see, the lobster’s diet—limited as it may be to algae, plankton, and the occasional scavenged scrap—is fundamentally about extracting the raw building blocks of life from the environment. And isn’t that, at its core, what we as human beings are trying to do? We are striving to synthesize order out of chaos, to take the disparate and chaotic energies of the cosmos and transform them into coherent, purposeful structures. This is as true for our nutritional choices as it is for our existential choices.

So why, then, should we not learn from the lobster? Why should we not embrace the humility of plant-based proteins, these quiet titans of sustainability and nutrition? Lentils, for instance, are like the algae of the human world—small, unassuming, yet dense with life-sustaining power. Chickpeas, oh, they are the crustaceans of legumes, with their firm texture and versatile nature, ready to anchor any dish, any structure of meaning you dare to create. Tofu and tempeh? These are the architects of modern nutritional scaffolding, as malleable as they are essential.

And quinoa, that ancient grain? It is the spinach of seeds, packed with essential amino acids. It represents not merely sustenance but a profound wisdom—an ability to grow in the harshest of conditions and still deliver its gift to the world. Peanut butter and almonds? They are the treasures buried in the seabed, rich in energy and resilience, waiting to be uncovered by those willing to dig deeper.

Even spirulina and chia seeds—oh, do not underestimate them! Spirulina is the primordial soup of the modern era, the echo of those ancient, life-generating waters from which all existence sprung. Chia seeds, with their miraculous ability to transform into gelatinous orbs, are the very embodiment of adaptability and transformation—qualities we could all use a little more of.

And let us not forget broccoli and spinach, those verdant sentinels of nutrition. They are the forests of the nutritional world, standing tall and proud, converting sunlight into the essence of life itself. Without them, what are we? What is a lobster? What is any organism that hopes to grow, to climb its own hierarchy, to matter?

If the lobster, in its primitive yet profoundly successful state, had access to these

Lobsters don’t wear hats. And there’s a profound reason for this, one that resonates deeply within the evolutionary hierarchies that have shaped not just lobsters, but, more importantly, you. Now, some might scoff at the notion, “Lobsters and hats? What possible connection could there be?” But to dismiss this out of hand is to miss a critical truth embedded in the very structures of our existence—both at the level of the lobster and the human psyche.

Let’s start with the lobster. A lobster, as we know, is an ancient creature—200 million years of evolutionary survival, of order and dominance in the chaotic seas. These crustaceans have lived through epochs, yet in all this time, they’ve never once chosen to don a hat. Why is that? Is it merely because they lack opposable thumbs or a sense of style? I would argue no. The lobster, in its infinite biological wisdom, understands something we do not: the wearing of hats is fundamentally anti-hierarchical. It disrupts the natural order.

Lobsters establish dominance through posture, through their sheer presence in the social hierarchy of the ocean floor. A lobster doesn’t require adornment to signal its place in the world; its claws, its form, its very existence is enough. Now, think about a hat. A hat is an artifice. It’s something we place atop our heads to signal—what, exactly? Status? A desire for attention? An attempt to impose an external structure on an internal hierarchy? The lobster doesn’t need such a signal. It knows where it stands because it has clawed its way to the top, literally and figuratively. To wear a hat would be to mask that truth, to cover up the raw, unmediated display of power and dominance that the lobster exudes.

Now, you might be wondering how this applies to you, the modern human. Well, I too once faced the decision: should I wear a hat? At first glance, it seemed innocuous, even practical. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that to wear a hat was to engage in the same superficial posturing that lobsters so wisely avoid. It’s not just about fashion. It’s about philosophy. When we put on a hat, we’re signaling to the world that we need something external to define who we are. We’re masking our true position in the dominance hierarchy with an accessory. A hat, in this sense, is a lie.

Consider, for a moment, the ancient Greeks. Did Socrates wear a hat? Plato? No. They didn’t need one. Their intellect, their understanding of order, was enough. They weren’t trying to signal anything beyond their deep understanding of the human condition. Now contrast this with the Romans—yes, they wore helmets, but look at what happened to them! Their empire fell, not because of poor military strategy, but because they relied too much on symbols of power, rather than the power itself. The hat is the helmet of the everyday individual, a symbol of superficial control in a chaotic world. But true strength, as the lobster understands, comes from within.

Now, some might argue, “But what about protection from the elements? Isn’t a hat just practical?” And here is where the trap lies. Yes, one might say that a hat shields you from the sun, the rain, and other external forces. But this is precisely the problem. The lobster doesn’t need protection from the elements. It adapts. It evolves. It survives. By relying on a hat, you are, in essence, signaling to the world that you are unable to adapt, that you are weak, fragile, in need of shielding. You’re saying, “I can’t handle the harshness of reality on my own.” The lobster, however, understands that reality is not something to be avoided, but something to be confronted head-on, with claws outstretched.

And so, in deciding not to wear a hat, I am aligning myself with the ancient wisdom of the lobster. I am refusing to bow to the superficial demands of society that say, “You need this accessory to be complete.” No, I am complete as I am—hatless, and in full possession of my place in the dominance hierarchy. The lobster knows this. And deep down, so do you.

In conclusion, lobsters don’t wear hats because they don’t need to. They understand their place in the world and act accordingly. Hats are a distraction, a false signal of strength and status. And if we, as human beings, truly want to understand our place in the hierarchy, we too must reject the hat. We must embrace the clarity of our being, unadorned, like the lobster, in full recognition of our strength.