While in the Amazon, I met a native who comes periodically to the city. He offered me to come live in his village 9 days upstream for as long as I wanted - he said I could live with his family, and they'd teach me the language, and how to hunt and fish, how to get medicines from the plants and trees, how to live independent of civilization.
I have been contemplating what life without civilization would be like ever since. In my fantasy, there would only be two kinds of activities - survival and play. I would do what was necessary to provide my basic needs - food, clothing, shelter. Everything else was optional - I would only do other things because I wanted to. It would be play.
When I think about how I live my life now, I notice that most of my activity is neither survival nor play - I do most of what I do because I should. I should go to work, I should be on time. I should clean the house, cook for my son, spend time with him. I should get that room rented and the basement vacuumed.
Most of what I do on the computer is neither need nor play. I should do a virus check. That list should be put in order, or I will have problems later on. I should update my web site.
There are very few things I do for actual survival - yes, theoretically my job is for my survival - but I don't need that job to survive. I don't have to have a clean house to stay alive. I really don't have to have a car - many people survive just fine without a car. The logical distance between going to work and putting food in my mouth is so remote that I just take it on faith that one is necessary for the other to happen. But what if it's not? What are the other possibilities?
Most of my frustration during the day comes from something not being as it should - the traffic is too slow, my computer crashed, I feel sleepy, my mailbox is filled with junk mail again, people drive slow in the left lane instead of moving to the right. Deep inside I feel all these things shouldn't be, as well as the people suffering from hurricanes, tsunamis, and suicide bombers. The world shouldn't be this way. I shake my mental fist at life, and go on.
But in my idealistic fantasy of the jungle, there is just living. Things just are the way they are. I don't say, the rabbits should be slower so I can catch them easier. I notice how fast the rabbits are, and plan on how to catch them accordingly. I notice when I am cold, and do something about it. I don't say why can't I have a pill instead of searching for a weed to make me feel better. The options are clear, and nothing else exists. When people tell me I have to do things a certain way, I say, why? When nature tells me, I say, okay. There is no one to argue with.
So why do I live with all these shoulds? Why is it so important to me for the world to conform to my idea of how things should be?
Control. If life is predictable, it feels safe. If I can control life, then I can feel safe.
If I do not feel safe, I must believe that life is hostile.
If my environment is hostile, then it was not made for me, nor I for it. I am an alien to my environment, and like a space traveller, I have to have artificial means of life support in order to survive. My life support system is shoulds - holding off reality with my demands of how life should be, approving or disapproving each event during the day, finding out whose naughty or nice by checking my list of approved actions.
We live in an age of technology, where devices are supposed to behave certain ways. Electronics are made to follow the rules of programming - when they deviate from the rule, it is bad - it is an error, a malfunction, and we buy a new one. Technology does not produce creative devices - my PC doesn't decide to become a Mac today just for the fun of it, to see how I will react. And those of us creating technology work hard to be sure our devices and programs follow all the rules exactly, all the time. Is it no wonder that the artist in us suffers?
What would it be like if I were to just let go? To notice what is, to live with it, and to act out of joy and creativity when I wanted, to play with life, dance with it, see how it would react to my teasing and leading. To let go of control, where no outcome is wrong, even if it is surprising or disappointing. What would it be like if I were to let go of trying to be as I should, if I simply did what was necessary to live, and the rest of the time, followed my passion?
Comment posted by Anonymous
at 10/29/2005 11:50:00 PM
I think the simpler life that you fantasy has its pros and cons, and I have had the same fantasy at times, and there are even TV shows now about groups of people simulating living a tribal or survival life as a game, but I'll go along with the civilized life. I've posted a reply to your Oct. 20 blog message which is really a copy of my previous message welcoming you back and commenting on what harm our society is doing to our planet. Andy
Comment posted by Heidi
at 10/29/2005 8:23:00 PM
I read your Blog about the idealistic wilderness life.
Seems to me the ideal mind set would work wonderfully if we were not pre-programmed with our life-long
experiences.
I remember that a friend of mine, coming back from Europe missed a simple thing like iceberg lettuce and another craved the American hamburger.
Thinking -- how would you feel missing the taste of real butter? (having seen you react frequently at
restaurants and retreats to the lousy food *s*.
On the other hand, it is conceivable that we can re-program many of our own desires in order to adapt to the passion of the wilderness freedoms - I have also experienced that kind of adapting - like at retreat where there is no outside communication (at least not for me)) I totally detatch from it - but I also know that it all comes to an end at a specific time. Heidi
Friday, October 28, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
End of the World
At the risk of being given a white robe, poster, and a spot on the city sidewalk, I believe it is entirely possible that we only have a few generations before the planet runs into inevitable disaster, and civilization as we know it, and perhaps the human race, could be gone - that we can all forget having great grandchildren.
But when I get past the stages of panic and despair, sometimes I find a new place of peace. It could very well be that the human race was never meant to live forever - after all, that is not the nature of life. All things must pass. It may be that we are only meant to last a brief time, this tiny six million year tick of the evolutionary clock, like a wildflower blooming for a day before it takes its exit from the world.
If there is truly nothing that can be done, if these are truly our last days, then our job would be to shine in the time that is left, rather than to fight a hopeless fight or drown our sorrows in ever more sophisticated technology. We could accept our approaching death with grace, and live as we truly want to live - with grace and beauty and love in the short time we have left. The phrase "Live each day as if it were your last" might take on a new meaning. And we could love each other, and love our planet - not necessarily because we can save it, but because it is our true nature to love, and it is in loving that we find the greatest joy and peace.
Happiness is not found in the achievement of grand goals, but in the moment, in the echo of the laughter of children, in a moment of ecstasy with a lover, in the delicasy of a wildflower, here but for a moment.
Is this not all the more reason to start living now as we truly want to live? And is it not in living as we were meant to live that there is any hope at all?
But when I get past the stages of panic and despair, sometimes I find a new place of peace. It could very well be that the human race was never meant to live forever - after all, that is not the nature of life. All things must pass. It may be that we are only meant to last a brief time, this tiny six million year tick of the evolutionary clock, like a wildflower blooming for a day before it takes its exit from the world.
If there is truly nothing that can be done, if these are truly our last days, then our job would be to shine in the time that is left, rather than to fight a hopeless fight or drown our sorrows in ever more sophisticated technology. We could accept our approaching death with grace, and live as we truly want to live - with grace and beauty and love in the short time we have left. The phrase "Live each day as if it were your last" might take on a new meaning. And we could love each other, and love our planet - not necessarily because we can save it, but because it is our true nature to love, and it is in loving that we find the greatest joy and peace.
Happiness is not found in the achievement of grand goals, but in the moment, in the echo of the laughter of children, in a moment of ecstasy with a lover, in the delicasy of a wildflower, here but for a moment.
Is this not all the more reason to start living now as we truly want to live? And is it not in living as we were meant to live that there is any hope at all?
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Trip to the Amazon
Just got back from a trip to Brazil - went to Manaus in the heart of the Amazon, and then Rio de Janeiro.
The Amazon stays on my mind - both the destruction and the concept of living without the crutches of civilization holding us up. Many of the natives have had to leave the jungle and get jobs in cities because their food - animals and fish - is disappearing due to deforestation. We saw very little wildlife there - most had been killed off. The Amazon river was at a 60-year low, and many side rivers were a small stream that a canoe could barely go up, causing vast areas upstream to be cut off from food and medical supplies from the city, since the river is their mode of transportation. We were told the drought is caused by changing weather patterns due to global warming. They also had a hurricane in southern Brazil - I believe the first in recorded history - due to global warming. The dolphins in the river are dying because the water is too warm. It may be in our life time that the way of life humans have known for millions of years will finally be eradicated from the planet, and our industrial life of the past few generations will take over, further destroying the infrastructure that was our birthplace. The life forms that took 60 billion years to produce human beings are being wiped out in a few human generations. We are killing our mother. And who knows if we really have what it takes to survive without her.
I still think about the offer from the native to go live in the jungle for a while. There are still an estimated 60 tribes in the Amazon that have never even been contacted by the outside world, still unpolluted by our ways. Tobias Schneebaum, author of Keep the River on your Right, went to live with the canibals in the Amazon some 40 years ago or so, and ate human flesh with them. He went back recently to produce a movie of them, and found them sitting around watching satillite TV. It will not be long before Coca Cola and Sony will become necessities of life for everyone in the world, and the corporations will have succeeded in totally destroying our connection with the mother earth in return for increased dividends. When will I ever have an opportunity again to find out what humans really need to live and be happy, before civilization convinced us we needed more?
I asked one of the natives who is now living in the city at Manaus and who had not been back to his village since he left (it is two weeks upstream), if he missed anything about the village. He said life was much easier there. Here he has to work 40 hours a week or more just to make ends meet. There he was with his community while he worked, instead of at a place of employment, and it did not take so many hours in order to provide what they needed to live. An easier life in the jungle? That sure challenges my view of things.
So I'm back in the world of computers, cell phones, PDA's, cars, polution, the "source of modern civilization" - America, from where corporate interests have spread world-wide, changing and destroying cultures and traditions thousands of years old, changing social and religious structure perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old. Technology, which in one tick of the clock has split the atom, traveled to other planets, modified our dna, produced artificial foods that we eat, allowed us to cram together into cities with no possible way of supporting the food and heat that we need to survive.
Yes, it is a way of living. But we do not know if it is viable. People cut down the forests because they want money like us - they want TV's and cars and computers and other "good things". Is there room on this planet for every poor person to have a car? Would our atmosphere survive it? Have we created a world where we can't allow the poor to rise to our level because our planet won't survive if they do? Is Iraq the beginning of the fight to horde the fuel of technology as we go rushing towards some crisis point? Our lifestyle is not viable in the long run. Our society is not sustainable. We have created a civilization based on the assumption of infinite resources, but now they are quickly dwindling. What happens when they run out? How many of us are prepared to go back to the jungle and live simply again? And if we did, would there still be fish to eat?
So, these is my ponderings from my trip. There is much more, but it will have to come out another time.
Comment posted by Anonymous
at 10/29/2005 10:24:00 PM
Hi, Gene,
Welcome back!
Your account of your experiences in Brazil, in the "real world" as well as Rio, tells me that our planet is in worse shape than I had realized. What a shame, that our way of life in the USA is harming innocent people in other countries because we are so carried away in chasing the dollar sign (it's hard to not be part of it even if one is living simply), polluting, consuming non-renewable resources, destroying natural habitats. Part of it is global warming apparently, caused by atmospheric changes which in turn are caused by pollution. Humanity is becoming a cancer on the planet, like someone said, and this planet is the only planet we've got.
On the positive side, Rio must have been a lot of fun, and I get the impression that your trip and your experience as a whole was a good learning and fun experience.
I'll be out of town from this afternoon until I return Sunday PM from a weekend Sufi Dance Camp (Dances of Universal Peace and related activities) and the last day of the Maryland Renaissance Festival.
Andy
The Amazon stays on my mind - both the destruction and the concept of living without the crutches of civilization holding us up. Many of the natives have had to leave the jungle and get jobs in cities because their food - animals and fish - is disappearing due to deforestation. We saw very little wildlife there - most had been killed off. The Amazon river was at a 60-year low, and many side rivers were a small stream that a canoe could barely go up, causing vast areas upstream to be cut off from food and medical supplies from the city, since the river is their mode of transportation. We were told the drought is caused by changing weather patterns due to global warming. They also had a hurricane in southern Brazil - I believe the first in recorded history - due to global warming. The dolphins in the river are dying because the water is too warm. It may be in our life time that the way of life humans have known for millions of years will finally be eradicated from the planet, and our industrial life of the past few generations will take over, further destroying the infrastructure that was our birthplace. The life forms that took 60 billion years to produce human beings are being wiped out in a few human generations. We are killing our mother. And who knows if we really have what it takes to survive without her.
I still think about the offer from the native to go live in the jungle for a while. There are still an estimated 60 tribes in the Amazon that have never even been contacted by the outside world, still unpolluted by our ways. Tobias Schneebaum, author of Keep the River on your Right, went to live with the canibals in the Amazon some 40 years ago or so, and ate human flesh with them. He went back recently to produce a movie of them, and found them sitting around watching satillite TV. It will not be long before Coca Cola and Sony will become necessities of life for everyone in the world, and the corporations will have succeeded in totally destroying our connection with the mother earth in return for increased dividends. When will I ever have an opportunity again to find out what humans really need to live and be happy, before civilization convinced us we needed more?
I asked one of the natives who is now living in the city at Manaus and who had not been back to his village since he left (it is two weeks upstream), if he missed anything about the village. He said life was much easier there. Here he has to work 40 hours a week or more just to make ends meet. There he was with his community while he worked, instead of at a place of employment, and it did not take so many hours in order to provide what they needed to live. An easier life in the jungle? That sure challenges my view of things.
So I'm back in the world of computers, cell phones, PDA's, cars, polution, the "source of modern civilization" - America, from where corporate interests have spread world-wide, changing and destroying cultures and traditions thousands of years old, changing social and religious structure perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old. Technology, which in one tick of the clock has split the atom, traveled to other planets, modified our dna, produced artificial foods that we eat, allowed us to cram together into cities with no possible way of supporting the food and heat that we need to survive.
Yes, it is a way of living. But we do not know if it is viable. People cut down the forests because they want money like us - they want TV's and cars and computers and other "good things". Is there room on this planet for every poor person to have a car? Would our atmosphere survive it? Have we created a world where we can't allow the poor to rise to our level because our planet won't survive if they do? Is Iraq the beginning of the fight to horde the fuel of technology as we go rushing towards some crisis point? Our lifestyle is not viable in the long run. Our society is not sustainable. We have created a civilization based on the assumption of infinite resources, but now they are quickly dwindling. What happens when they run out? How many of us are prepared to go back to the jungle and live simply again? And if we did, would there still be fish to eat?
So, these is my ponderings from my trip. There is much more, but it will have to come out another time.
Comment posted by Anonymous
at 10/29/2005 10:24:00 PM
Hi, Gene,
Welcome back!
Your account of your experiences in Brazil, in the "real world" as well as Rio, tells me that our planet is in worse shape than I had realized. What a shame, that our way of life in the USA is harming innocent people in other countries because we are so carried away in chasing the dollar sign (it's hard to not be part of it even if one is living simply), polluting, consuming non-renewable resources, destroying natural habitats. Part of it is global warming apparently, caused by atmospheric changes which in turn are caused by pollution. Humanity is becoming a cancer on the planet, like someone said, and this planet is the only planet we've got.
On the positive side, Rio must have been a lot of fun, and I get the impression that your trip and your experience as a whole was a good learning and fun experience.
I'll be out of town from this afternoon until I return Sunday PM from a weekend Sufi Dance Camp (Dances of Universal Peace and related activities) and the last day of the Maryland Renaissance Festival.
Andy
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