If we could magically transport ourselves back to the young Earth, when it was only a billion years old or two billion years old or three billion years old or four billion years old, we wouldn't be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.
The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems.
What would I do now, at age 48, if I were deported to a country that I have not seen in more than 40 years and whose language I no longer speak? How would I work? How would I survive?
To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given landmark to the right or left, to find a dry spring where one looked for running water - there is no help for any of these things.
The Pilgrims were unified by their religious zeal, but they couldn't fish, they didn't know how to hunt, and they were bad at farming. In fact, they never had a good harvest until they learned to fish cod and plow the waste in the ground as fertilizer.
Bollywood is a tough place to be in and survival isn't easy.
The film industry is actually a tough place to survive.
The extremes of jungles, mountains, and deserts are inherently dangerous places.
For hundreds of thousands of years, life was brutal. It still is for a good chunk of the planet. The technology and wealth we enjoy in North America is a very new development in history, and I think we miss the challenges of day-to-day survival in our comparatively easy modern lives. Some people will even create problems if they have none.
We were just covered in dirt the whole time. It was so hot - and that was in winter. I can not imagine what it's like in summer and how the people who actually live out there survive.
I'd love to be on 'Man vs. Wild.'
It takes no prisoners. We had to completely change wardrobe for the girls because we had summer wardrobe set and it was so frigidly cold while we were shooting. And the bug population was through the roof, that summer. It was just silly! The fact that we even survived at all is shocking. The fact that we came out of it with a movie that I really like is awe-inspiring.
...to be injured on this tundra would lead to a quick and painful death—or at the very least abject humiliation before the popping flashes of the tourist season's tail end, which was slightly less painful than a painful death, but lasted longer.
Living in China, I found out that the bright new world was not for me, not for defectors. My life in North Korea had been OK; suddenly, in China, I had to feed myself and earn money. Worst of all, North Korean defectors are hunted by the government.
We're [humans] running great risks of doing things that will not be good for us. The cost can be very high indeed if we reach the point where we can't adapt to our own increasingly rapid adaptations. We run the risk of early extinction. So this certainly isn't a triumphalist story, but it is trying to get at what, in the very long run, leads to the amazing creatures that we are.
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
Nature is cold, wet, hard and unforgiving.
Crawling at your feet,' said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), 'you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.' And what does IT live on?' Weak tea with cream in it.' A new difficulty came into Alice's head. 'Supposing it couldn't find any?' she suggested. Then it would die, of course.' But that must happen very often,' Alice remarked thoughtfully. It always happens,' said the Gnat.
Going underground is no answer. What kind of world would they come up to? What would they use for air? What would they use for food? ... What would they use for people?
Reacting to Federal civil defense suggestions of building underground fallout shelters:
I think that New York City in the year 1900 was a very difficult place to survive.
Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders into the cave and starts to purr.
I'm interested in reality, and I'm interested in survival. I'm interested in people who aren't the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story.
All travellers who had preceded me into the Barren Grounds had relied on the abundant game, and in consequence suffered dreadful hardships; in some cases even starved to death.
How do people who live utterly alone survive? There are so many things that won't open. I've got a few dresses in New York, and I can somehow get them on, but I can't get them off.
There were times when I would suddenly realize making music is a crazy pipe dream. I would see bands that did super well in South Africa still struggling to survive, or even people on the international level who are doing well but financially can't really support themselves.