Sunday, August 13, 2006

Koyaanisqatsi

Sometimes I think about why we are all so off-kilter in Western society. I mean, you can hardly call us balanced when we work far more than we play and we need more and more aid from pharmaceutical companies to convince us to continue.

I wonder too, as evolution prepared us over the millenia, how our instincts to acquire food through gathering and hunting work against us in the artificial reality that we all agree to live in. If only our instinct was to acquire money, life would be so easy. Because then it would feel natural to start businesses and climb the corporate ladder.

Instead, we are the proverbial fish out of water. Only we have been brainwashed to think we're still in the river.

Now is the time for harvest and hoarding if we respect the calendar of our evolutionary roots.

Maybe that's why I'm in such a funk even though I've been off work for 6 weeks.

16 comments:

RIC said...

Fine reasoning! I couldn't agree more. And the title means? It's Inuit, I guess... Or maybe not at all.

Jack said...

For some reason, I knew!?

I don't know why!?

Tomorrow will be a good day!?

J

Chunks said...

Maybe you just need to go out and kill your dinner?

I've been harvesting this week. The air smells like fall. I wish I had planted pumpkins.

I think everyone who is normally in a "school" routine is feeling a little melancholy and off lately. Myself included.

Chin up old chap!

Anonymous said...

We do our hunting and gathering at Wal-Mart. I guess it's more civilized than killing a baby seal. You are in a funk because you know that it will soon be back to school. Once your back and in the groove things will get better.

jef said...

"...I mean, you can hardly call us balanced when we work far more than we play..."

Heheh! You're so right by saying that. But, we can't do anything about it. Our world became so materialistic that we tend to hoard things though unnecessary...work endlessly to a company that doesn't really care, to a cause that doesn't really feel justifiable.

...maybe that's how life really works.

Nicki said...

Excellent post! And I couldn't agree with you more about the need for pharmaceutical help. I have friends in England who make fun of Americans for our excessive use of prescription drugs. I hate to say it, but they're probably right.

Anonymous said...

I think you're exactly right and the only cure I know of is to reduce consumtpion. "Needing" fewer things gives you the freedom to make very different decisions.

GayProf said...

I wonder if this is why I feel like hiding under my bed with the cat right now.

Lemuel said...

Maybe that's why fall has always been my favorite time of year!

A Bear in the Woods said...

I'm thinking about trying to start a garden, as a way to get back into the rythmn of the seasons.

teh l4m3 said...

Like it or not, we're still the same creatures who were living in caves 100,000 years ago.

Kalv1n said...

I think about this topic a lot, and I wonder how much time hunter gatherers did actually just that. Plus, the tasks were so repetitive with time for thought, and now we can just stimulate ourselves constantly. Sigh.

Mikey said...

Life out of balance...I am feeling that right now as well. I am a student finishing my BA and having little to do is starting to make me think too much...I need routine to get some of the balance back.

Anonymous said...

I've had the pleasure of seeing all of these life-out-of-balance series. My favorite being Baraka. We are truly marvelous and utterly frightening in the same breath.
kb

Amanda said...

A-Freaking-MEN!

Patricia said...

i think we crave routine. even when we are stuck in one. and so when we live with less routine, less structure, than we are used to, it puts us in a funk. then when we go back to our routine, we long for the meandering days of leisure.

the libra in me insists that somewhere there exists a balance for this. but i've yet to find it.