Paleoanthropologist Don Johanson: ‘We All Need To Embrace This Gift of Being Born Human’

Do you miss the days of working in a field camp?

I have a romantic view ... of the early days, being in remote camps in the middle of the desert, sitting around a table at night with little kerosene lamps. Today I don’t want to live in a tent for two months in the middle of the desert. But looking back at my diaries, I don’t remember ever complaining.

Speaking of romantic, you remarried at age 79. How does late-life romance compare to when you were younger?

It’s the best. I married a woman named Robin who is a true partner. She’d written me a letter — you know, the ones you used to put a stamp on — and later helped me through some writing challenges. But it was a number of years before I actually met her for dinner. It was like, Wow! Where have you been my whole life? It was definitely a spark.

You chose a unique time and place to pop the question.

We were on a safari in southern Kenya with close friends, having a sumptuous picnic under a beautiful acacia tree. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And I walked over to Robin and asked her to marry me. She said yes. Besides our friends, no other people were around, but a small herd of zebras stopped by. We’ve been happy every day since.

You have many passions, including music, photography and African birding. How do you stay so curious and joyful?

I wake up loving every day. I feel we’ve been given this incredible opportunity to be alive. I used to shock my students by telling them, “You’re the lucky ones, because you’re going to die.” Then I’d explain, “The only reason you’re going to die is because you were born. A few genes different and you would not be you.” We all need to embrace this gift of being born human, find our passions and be proactive in life.

How long can humans survive, given that some 99 percent of all species that ever lived have gone extinct?

People say even the dinosaurs went extinct. Well, they didn’t have a choice. We have a choice. We have the smartest organ — our brain — that we know of in our solar system. We have the technological complexity to solve a lot of problems. But as a species, we are overly focused on ourselves. I call us “Homo egocentricists.” We live locally and don’t think globally. We need to understand our place in the natural world and cooperate to preserve this precious planet.

What is the purpose of NASA’s Lucy Mission, named for our human ancestor?

The Lucy spacecraft will explore a group of Trojan asteroids, mysterious space rocks trapped in Jupiter’s orbit that hold vital clues to the origins of our solar system. Here’s what’s mind-boggling: Last November Lucy successfully flew within 270 miles of an asteroid called Dinkinesh — Lucy’s Ethiopian name — that’s 300 million miles away. And discovered Dinkinesh has a moon. It did that traveling at a speed of 10,000 miles per hour. I mean, wow!

I didn’t know asteroids had moons.

Well [laughs] I can’t say I did either.

The next asteroid Lucy will fly by is named Donaldjohanson. Has your life come full circle?

Yes. I’ll probably be with the pilot in Colorado who’ll be steering the spacecraft. My discovery of an early ancestor who walked upright came just a few years after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Now the Lucy Mission and the James Webb Space Telescope are unlocking the history of our cosmos. It will be left to future generations to determine how long Homo sapiens continue to be the most extraordinary species we know of in the universe.