Evolution, through our hedonic or pleasure cycle, plays the odds: If something worked before, it will probably work again. Food or sex will be gotten; danger will be avoided. Sensations of pleasant or unpleasant create habits, which improve odds of survival. This adds up—survival literally breeds more survival. This works on broad patterns, such as whole species. But the survival of some patterns is as far as evolution ever reads the story. If human suffering or stress follows, evolution can’t “know” or “care,” even though beings that know & care arise from the process. We suffer a lot because we assume evolution makes value judgments; it makes beings that make judgments. Our values, & our feelings, are parts in a larger process. They are not good or bad in themselves. Habits are the software code that can create tendencies to act in ways that create harm to ourselves & others—or the opposite. Kamma affects us through habits. It is not fate. We can find in our experience the slight gap between sensations & craving. We can avoid mindless clinging, which creates dukkha—suffering & stress. Gotama saw how to use the understanding of patterns to train ourselves to see the workings of habits—even very rapid habits of mental activity (saṅkhāra). We can let go of unwholesome patterns & cultivate wholesome ones. Concentration & insight provide the way.