“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” – Mahatma Gandhi
FROM FRONTIERSMEN TO MILLENNIALS
There were explorers, then settlers, then frontier, then towns, then cities. Then, in the span of a couple hundred years, the frontier was gone.
This is the history of America.
Where, for the previous millennia, young men moved from the country to the city to become “civilized”, now, we find ourselves retreating to the woods. Sometimes we retreat to learn the basic survival skills of our ancestors. Most often however, we retreat to fill the hole that was left in our souls when we replaced know how with cash.
Interesting Read: 7 People Who Left Civilization To Live In The Wild
Look around you…at all the broken camels. What do they really know how to do?
While there are exceptions, the average American doesn’t know how to grow a garden, trap an animal, identify what plants are edible, or even start a fire.
Basic survival skills.
Being in and around the construction industry for a lifetime, I tell you with authority that the majority of people haven’t the faintest clue how to use a saw, a drill, or really create anything at all.
We traded 100,000 years of survival and homemaking skills for very narrow talent sets that only create one thing – money.
Money we trade to handle all of the tasks of modern life. Money we trade to keep our thermostats on 70 degrees, pay the nanny, the yard guy, the mechanic, the chef and order up “natural” foods to sustain us…at a premium.
It may sound conspiratorial, but I believe this is what is meant by “the meek shall inherit the earth”.
WHO WILL SURVIVE?
If there is ever a major calamity in this world who will survive?
Not the banker. Not the tech mogul. Spreadsheets and debit cards won’t get you very far in the wild. Sure, the money will get you by for a short time, or even buy you a bunker full of canned goods! But eventually, that money (or more likely the skill or commodity you have to trade) will go to the farmer who knows how to grow his or her own sustenance, or the fella who can find you clean water to drink.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
Our specialized skill set not only bought us the ability to outsource the “tasks” of life, it bought us free time. Loads of it.
Free time to do what exactly?
Watch TV.
It’s no wonder we are an anxious and depressed society.
The number of Americans who say they’ve taken an antidepressant over the past month rose by 65 percent between 1999 and 2014, a new government survey finds.
Why?
FILLING THE HOLE
We are the wealthiest society to ever grace this earth, in nearly every category.
But we are far from the happiest.
Again…why?
Could it be the hole we found in our hearts and souls when we left the land in favor of the city? Is this why nature: the beach, the woods and the mountains, draw us so?
A feeble attempt at filling that hole?
See you on the journey.