Us from their perspective
We invented washing machines and things like it to remove the need for backbreaking labor every day just to survive. We created vaccines to cure and anesthesia to remove pain. Why would anyone consider reverting to the Stone Age, risk it, or even move in that direction? Moving backward is the last thing we should do. Why give up on what we worked so hard for?
Yet cultures remain that resist joining the modern world that we call indigenous. Why don’t they get with the program?
Some do, but some see our culture with its airplanes, longevity, and cell phones and choose their own, out of knowledge and experience, not ignorance or stupidity.
Recording my third podcast episode with Alan Ereira, who has lived among the Kogi in the mountains of Colombia. They’ve lived for centuries to millennia in ways that maintained Earth’s ability to sustain life. They see our culture and while some assimilate, enough choose not to join to maintain their culture.
I asked him what they think of us. I think I specifically asked what they think about homeless people in our culture. Naturally, they don’t view our culture from our perspective. They view it from theirs. Whereas we think we have longevity, comfort, convenience, medicine, technology, progress, from their perspective, Alan told me the see we are:
- Vicious
- Uncaring
- Cruel
- Selfish
- More work
- Less comfortable
We think of airplanes bringing us to family and nature. They see us stepping over homeless people and wonder “what are you living for?”
What is our purpose, as individuals and society?
What are we missing?
I’ve written here only the tip of the iceberg. Listen to the episode. Sorry, it may take a few weeks to make it through the editing queue, but it will be worth it.
If you still fly, why do you fly if not, in part, to learn about other cultures and to learn about yourself by seeing yourself from their perspective. You’ll get that with Alan and my third conversation, polluting far less than by flying.
Here is one of Alan’s movies on the Kogi, Aluna:
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