We are at a low point in human history. Our mental and physical health are abysmal. The health of the planet is not much better. We’re witnessing a massive extinction — of species on the planet, and of the wild human soul.

We see the greatest hope for human happiness and development as a species coming from an ancestral, or evolutionary science perspective — one that acknowledges that we evolved for millions of years in an environment that was dramatically different from the modern day, and that most of our ills stem from the mismatch between our ancestral environment — built deep into our DNA — and the current “standard American life” we find ourselves living.

The discrepancy between the human being that evolved over 2 million years, from that which has emerged since the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, and catapulted forth, means we have advanced culturally at a vastly more accelerated rate than our biological species is adapted for or can keep up with: we just cannot evolve biologically as quickly as we need to in order to keep up culturally.

We believe that the best chance for us to advance ourselves to regain vibrant health and happiness is to incorporate evolutionary wisdom into our modern lives.

This reincorporation process is unprecedented in human history, but it’s time to take action, and to create a new way ahead.

The Mismatch Institute is a response to the question: What do we do now?

We cannot go back to living in caves, but we see dangerous consequences by greeting the technology-happy future with completely open arms.

How to move forward, while incorporating the best learning from our past? How to create a roadmap through to the future that takes the best of what we are now, and builds upon it, leaving aside what we now know has proven detrimental to the development of our physical, biological, psychological and spiritual growth and happiness.

We see pieces of solutions in disparate popular cultural movements that have been gaining momentum in recent years — Ancestral Health Science/Paleo, Agro-Ecology/Permaculture, Sustainability/Conscious Capitalism, and Mindfulness/Meditation. All of these movements are attempting to create positive change by looking to the wisdom of the past, and of natural systems — but there’s a bigger picture, which must incorporate both the personal and the planetary.  

Change needs to start at the micro level within the individual, as we question every cultural script we’ve been conditioned to follow, everything we’ve been taught to believe, pursue, create, and consume.

And change also needs to happen at the macro level — a cultural, structural, and planetary level. We need to reconsider the institutions and systems that are compromising our planet and our happiness upon it.

The Mismatch Institute sees the personal and the planetary as inseparably intertwined. It takes a deep systems-level perspective on behavior change, and thus, culture change. It brings together thought-leaders, educators, academics, professionals, and artists from disparate but cutting-to-bleeding-edge cultural movements in order to teach, learn, engage, play, and, in so doing, accelerate change.

The Mismatch Institute is currently in its early incubation phase. Ultimately, it will function as a non-profit, educational and living retreat center, and living community incubator. It will serve as a base camp, a model, a laboratory, an unschool, a playground, a training ground, a living art installation, an inspiration space, and a cultural catalyst. We recognize that it is not easy to stop living the standard American life, and we will meet people where they are, educating people at every stage of development, and providing new models for sustainable and restorative living.  

We recognize that we are at a critical cultural moment right now. We’re destroying our planet and ourselves. Much of what we know as “civilization” is no longer serving us. It’s time to reconsider the institutions and behaviors that are holding us back from attaining our full individual and group potential.  Our goal: to remodel these institutions and behaviors with a new set of cultural structures, ideas, and practices — to advance the human transition into a new and better age.

We do not know what this new age will look like. But by bringing together the people who dare to question sacred scripts, who are forging new paths and playing new games and writing new manifestos in the sky, we will create a new culture from the inside out.