Tribes: Vanishing Treasures

People in today’s modern “civilized” world will never, and can never, find or achieve the level of happiness and intimacy that others possess who are outside the “real world” or what we consider civilization. The reason being is this: tribal people and nomads are a people who only work for a few hours a day on a regular basis. If you put aside constructing any buildings, or huts and all the occasional special work like celebrations and such and you only take into account the things that need to be met for survival you will find that most men in the tribes only work approximately three hours a day to provide food. This, of course, is also excluding any type of animal training or care. Now keep in mind, all their friends and family are with them in this small tribe, so there is very little need of going some other place or making a production to visit family. Also, they have no upkeep for their houses. Most of them are built, and finished in a day and stay that way until they need to be built again. There are no vehicles to take care of, there are no pets, and there are no house chores. No dishes, no laundry, no vacuuming, no cleaning, no goofing around on the internet, no video games, no TV. After having said this isn’t it obvious how much time the community would have for one another? Most of their days are spent smoking tobacco and lazing around with one another. Because American constraints take up so much of our time with the things mentioned above, we have very little time for everyone. So, mathematically, what are the odds that we will EVER know and love each other the way those people do?

Even if our good friend The Statistics gave them a full eight hours a day to accomplish these things they would still have far more time than we ever could because of the lack of items to take care of. Think about just ONE aspect of your wasted life: the commute to work. How many hours have you wasted driving to and from work? These tribal people walk five minutes and boom their in a jungle; their place of work. Think about all the time you WASTE cleaning stuff you never use, or trying to stay on top of the things you don’t really need. Or think about the time wasted on watching TV, or video games.

Well, that’s what makes us so much better than them because we are intelligent and civilized, right? For one thing all our intelligence and civilization has brought us is rapes, murders, organized crime, injustices in the imperfect and laughable justice system, arsons, terrorism, religious warfare, territorial warfare, pollution, poisonous fast foods, brainwashing propaganda, and technology that makes us fat, lazy and stupid. Sure all our advancements can do wonderful things if used correctly, but morally we are just big children with dangerous toys. And yet we aren’t any happier.

So, what is so wrong about a tribal lifestyle? What is so socially unacceptable? Sure they might work hard and be a little dirty, but when was dirt ever a bad thing? Doesn’t dirt support trees, which in turn supports oxygen, which in turn supports humans? Isn’t it dirt that allows for food? So dirt allows us to live, what is wrong with having a little under your nails? You should be KISSING dirt and thanking whatever God that it exists because without it the world wouldn’t be here. Just like every other “disgusting” thing in the ecosystem. Wear a little locket of dirt around your neck like most Christians wear the cross! IT MEANS YOUR LIFE!

These people who live in the rain forests and in the isolated and remote places and worship these strange deities and who are looked upon as savages are probably the only people who have it right. They are the ones who live life with the least amount of stress. Their BIGGEST concern on a day to day basis is the health of their loved ones and food. That’s it. Yes, when someone gets sick it’s a pretty bad situation because of the lack of medical care. But let’s face it, even with all the advancements in modern medicine we still can’t fix ninety-nine percent of the problems, or even diagnose them. That is why we still call it PRACTICING MEDICINE because no one has, or ever will, master the body or mind. Yes, when tribes go to war it’s an ugly thing, but everyone wars. The only thing that makes the big nations “better” is we have weapons that can kill more people from a greater distance. I would bet if you stripped guns and missiles from the scene we would have smaller and fewer wars. How much harder is it to rip someone’s stomach open with a sword and see the demonic look of death in their eyes as their life blood returns to the very soil that gave you life than it is to pop a cap in them from a few hundred meters? Mass murder sponsored by the military has become a depersonalized thing and because of this the trauma the soldiers face has become less since the gun revolutionized the battle grounds. Because the trauma is less and it’s not as personal it doesn’t mean as much, one man’s life isn’t that important when you’re not face to face with him while he pleads for his life and calls for mom or God.

And it saddens me to know that civilization is slowly but surely creeping in and destroying these wonderful, and mostly peaceful cultures. And I think the biggest disappointment of all is that the people who live in these tribes WANT some things to change because they believe something better awaits them.

Ryan Valich
September 19, 2005
2:57 PM Central