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Retreating from the world
Feb. 12th, 2006 11:25 amThe estimable Warren Ellis has provided an interesting link about one of the world's last Stone Age tribes still in existence. The Sentinelese tribe, who apparently number 50 to 200, are believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world to remain isolated.
This particular article notes that the tribe has "rebuffed all contact with the modern world, firing a shower of arrows at anyone who comes within range." I would guess that's a fairly effective method of indicating that you're not interested in striking up a friendship, yeah. I find it fascinating that this tribe is still around; first off, I had no inkling of their existence, and secondly it's interesting that the Stone Age way of life still works fairly well even in today's world -- if given the right circumstances and environment, at least.
This got me musing on technology and the tribe's chosen way of life, though. Environmentalists apparently have lobbied for this tribe to be left alone -- there is a five-kilometer exclusion zone around the island -- and there's every indication that they manage fairly well when left to their own devices. We should all be so lucky, eh?
I also admit to a certain amount of interest in their way of life. It's tempting, every once in a while when the pressures of "modern" life get to be too pressing, to just throw off all the trappings and technologies of today's world and just run around in circles naked, gibbering. (I hear the Audience saying, yep: I knew it all along, he was always unstable). Seriously, though, sometimes it does seem rather tempting to simplify things. Didn't a famous philosopher say that once? "Simplify, simplify, simplify"? Well, sometimes I get struck by the urge to do just that -- to simplify to an extreme, to eschew all technology, sell all my stuff and move to a deserted island in the Caribbean and take up the role of the Twelve Volt Man. (Let's ignore for a second the fact that I would probably go stark raving mad in a few weeks without the comforts of the modern world, or the fact that I am eminently UNqualified for a nomadic existence).
A few years ago, when I first met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zengoddess and she got me started with this whole Livejournal thing, she was planning almost exactly that. She was hoping, within a few years, to implement a life change of her own. She was going to sell everything she owned here, give up her high-paying job, and move to a small island in the Bahamas (St. Kitt? I can't remember which one exactly), and live and work as a waitress. Minimal life, minimal stresses, minimal world. But it sounded idyllic and even if it wasn't the kind of life I would be well suited for, I liked the idea and a small part of me envied a life like that.
No, I'm not suited for an overly-simplified life, but these Sentinelese (remember them? The Stone Age tribe I mentioned a while back before I started pontificating?) are obviously doing quite well with theirs. And so, as Bilbo Baggins observed, it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.
-- END OF LINE --
[[The Oracle would like to if you have any dreams of a different life.]]
This particular article notes that the tribe has "rebuffed all contact with the modern world, firing a shower of arrows at anyone who comes within range." I would guess that's a fairly effective method of indicating that you're not interested in striking up a friendship, yeah. I find it fascinating that this tribe is still around; first off, I had no inkling of their existence, and secondly it's interesting that the Stone Age way of life still works fairly well even in today's world -- if given the right circumstances and environment, at least.
This got me musing on technology and the tribe's chosen way of life, though. Environmentalists apparently have lobbied for this tribe to be left alone -- there is a five-kilometer exclusion zone around the island -- and there's every indication that they manage fairly well when left to their own devices. We should all be so lucky, eh?
I also admit to a certain amount of interest in their way of life. It's tempting, every once in a while when the pressures of "modern" life get to be too pressing, to just throw off all the trappings and technologies of today's world and just run around in circles naked, gibbering. (I hear the Audience saying, yep: I knew it all along, he was always unstable). Seriously, though, sometimes it does seem rather tempting to simplify things. Didn't a famous philosopher say that once? "Simplify, simplify, simplify"? Well, sometimes I get struck by the urge to do just that -- to simplify to an extreme, to eschew all technology, sell all my stuff and move to a deserted island in the Caribbean and take up the role of the Twelve Volt Man. (Let's ignore for a second the fact that I would probably go stark raving mad in a few weeks without the comforts of the modern world, or the fact that I am eminently UNqualified for a nomadic existence).
A few years ago, when I first met
zengoddess and she got me started with this whole Livejournal thing, she was planning almost exactly that. She was hoping, within a few years, to implement a life change of her own. She was going to sell everything she owned here, give up her high-paying job, and move to a small island in the Bahamas (St. Kitt? I can't remember which one exactly), and live and work as a waitress. Minimal life, minimal stresses, minimal world. But it sounded idyllic and even if it wasn't the kind of life I would be well suited for, I liked the idea and a small part of me envied a life like that. No, I'm not suited for an overly-simplified life, but these Sentinelese (remember them? The Stone Age tribe I mentioned a while back before I started pontificating?) are obviously doing quite well with theirs. And so, as Bilbo Baggins observed, it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.
-- END OF LINE --
[[The Oracle would like to if you have any dreams of a different life.]]