Our Present Is Not For the Faint-Hearted
Cont’d from What Are We Able To Do?
Heads up: this mind-meander might simply end up being a grab-bag of ‘throw away’ ideas about the harms we, humans, have accepted to inflict ourselves under the guise of ‘modernity’ – but, hopefully, there will be a bit more to it.
The neutral observers that we are will notice that hordes of us drive handsome, rugged or tough-looking 4×4 vehicles. We might need them for hauling and towing. We might need them to pull through anticipated tough situations.
Many-many of us also buy them for our recreational purposes.
And to get ‘due’ respect from onlookers and sedan drivers alike.
Unisex workman-style, rugged-looking boots are in fashion, too.
They accessories jeans that are no longer ripped through years of hard and difficult work, like Levi’s jeans of old.
These days, we buy pre-ripped jeans intentionally.
And they are so tight that they look like coloured skin on our buttocks and our legs.
Why do we wear those?
No idea.
Hordes of us, too, have enough tattoos to be the envy of any ancient mariner on board Columbus’ Santa Maria.
These days, many of our men do their best to look rugged with beards, redefined US marine-inspired hairstyles and ‘man bun’ topknots borrowed from fierce-looking ancient warriors, Japanese princes and … David Beckham.
But, one thing for sure, stranded in the middle of any wilderness, not many of us, men or women, would be able to effectively protect ourselves from any predatory animal.
Probably not even from a task-focused colony of ants.
We certainly couldn’t do it as effectively as our truly resilient Homo sapiens ancestors did.
As city-born dwellers, we have neither the knowledge nor the ability to improvise adequate shelter against the sun and the elements.
We no longer know how to let the night stars guide us to safety.
Setting aside the possibility of an unusual karmic destiny, how long would most of us survive in the wilderness, in the absence of any GPS signal or rescue teams and their choppers?
These days, just as women can trick the eye with hair extensions … men can treat themselves to clip-on ‘buns’, if their hair is too short for a real one.
‘Hair is everything,’ some say.
Others say, ‘plumped up lips are everything.’
Others’ views are that ‘serving the curve’ accentuating the visual profile of a girl’s or a woman’s breasts and buttocks is everything.
Fair enough and to each their own, as the expression goes.
No judgment.
Only a neutral observation.
Reality check: whether man or woman, what can we really do or achieve on our own?
Unlike our earliest ancestors who built shelters, invented and shaped tools, hunted, skinned hides and gathered their food directly from nature, whatever we produce these days is mostly via our keyboards – most of it is intangible.
We can neither touch nor admire in a 3-D whatever we contribute to those who pay us a salary. Their primary expectation is that we dedicate our skills to the ongoing success of the establishment, firm or industry they manage.
Our contribution is abstract.
Therefore, less satisfying to our senses than could otherwise be.
We are mostly competent keyboard manipulators unless we are tradies, farmers, surgeons, artists, and artisans. Ah, yes, at times, we prepare meals and desserts. Or build a cubie house or a swing for our children or model boats, too. And, yes, these are definitely manual tasks. 😉
If it’s true that we are what we repeatedly do – and repeatedly think …
transforming the world, we are?
No, that’s not us.
Not really.
Generally, highly stressed and depleted, drained of life force energy, we do our best to make it through another day.
Stuck as we are in our limiting beliefs and patterns, we are not alone.
While we are too afraid to follow our Source calling, inner guidance, a.k.a. Soul’s whispers, we are not ‘rechargeable’.
The only aptitude that is truly ours, here and now, should we wish to ‘open the download’, is that which enables each one of us to envision a sustainably healthier, happier version of our selves.
That’s the beginning of our recharge.
Thank goodness our bodies are born equipped with intuitive wisdom!
Like the flora recovers and rejuvenates itself once the trauma caused by wildfires has passed, our bodies, too, have the energy needed to heal themselves. But, then again, our ancestors, too, were born with this awe-some default programme.
Be that as it may, it pays to trust our bodies’ innate healing energy. And it’s best to support it by curating all that we ingest through our thoughts – and through our mouths – in a way that would have been obvious to early Homo Sapiens.
Reality check: for our ancestors, food was their medicine.
In a more recent era but still more than two millennia ago, Hippocrates wrote, “In food excellent medicine can be found, in food bad medicine can be found; good and bad are relative.”
In the absence of any ominous rumblings, a destructive act of god, human or animal marauding predators, our ancestors likely fell asleep soon after nightfall.
But … sleep no longer comes naturally to many of us.
We need the help of the ever-growing wellness industry to tell us how to access sleep, let alone deep, rejuvenating sleep.
Reality check: as healthy, restorative sleep doesn’t come in pill form, out of a bottle or as pizza toppings, our sleep often falters even with the help of the industry.
Reality check: generally speaking, it’s very tempting to say that, for us, modern Earth dwellers, medicine and chemicals ‘are’ our food.
We have allowed them to become as pervasive as weed in our quasi-abandoned, once thriving garden bed.
The standard American processed food diet swept across the world, starting in the 50s.
You see, we like things that are easy to manage.
We like them done fast.
We like them cheap.
And we like them fun.
We embraced all the food options the industries put on our supermarket shelves.
So, low on nutrients, high in ‘bad fats’, and consumed too fast, ‘modern’ processed food still ticks all the boxes.
And by now, in 2021 CE, the dementia/Alzheimer’s epidemic is out of control.
The food we have chosen to eat affects the brains of millions of people.
And, if not the cause, then it is a contributor to many illnesses.
Weird, huh?
Bottom line: unlike our ancient ancestors, most of us are blessed to live in a relatively safe social and physical environment.
Ironically, though, we are debilitated by an unsurpassed level of comfort and ease.
‘Nana korobi, ya oki’ is a well-known Japanese proverb intended to push one into greater resilience and hope. Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Easier said than done as postural dysfunction, chronic low back pain and generally weakened leg muscles due to a life spent sitting or lying are challenging more and more of us across all age groups. Metaphorically speaking, we could say that there is a challenge within a challenge in the call to stand up proud and strong on the ‘eighth round’.
Reality check: statistics say that approximately 70% of older adults suffer from at least two chronic illnesses.
Sure, we can easily believe that.
For the past 50 years or so, the crisis of male identity has become topical within the context of domestic violence, social misconduct and misogyny endured by fat too many girls and women. Domestic violence and social misconduct affect boys, too.
Suicide across both genders and all ages is always on the rise.
Racism, social inequities, acts of violence and control such as rape, and the murder of girls and women of all ages are as prevalent in 2021 as decades ago.
Our loss.
Some scars will endure.
But then again, we can assist in the healing of these scars.
We don’t have to let the wounds fester and break us.
Uh … in all fairness, it should be added that, yes, of course, the rate of violent rapes of girls/women and femicide perpetrated by our male ancestors was much more endemic than now. Perhaps it was as ‘common’ as it is today in war zones and cartel infested towns and villages.
But breathe like our ancestors, that, we still do.
However, we don’t do it as deeply as they would have done.
Our breath is shallow.
We often have too much on our minds to breathe consciously.
Still, despite everything, we have the right to enjoy our days – and sometimes we do.
That’s because, beyond the surface frazzle affecting our ego-persona, our inner core is rock solid.
