02-06-2010, 09:00 PM
Zenmaster, I agree with a couple of your points. A focus on survival struggle does indeed make it challenging to look up to higher aspirations.
I'm not convinced that it's accurate to write off pre-industrial tribes as ignorantly stuck in pre-rational mysticism. They may well have had people every bit as intelligent, thoughtful, and creative as anyone we might encounter today on a sidewalk in New York City, Tokyo or London. They may have had a broader and deeper range of spiritual insights than our neighbors and colleagues today.
Another reference - again, sorry I don't have the citation - referred to hunter-gatherer tribes as only requiring about four hours of work a day to meet all of life's needs. Hunter groups might need to be gone for a week on the hunt, but then might have a month off. Gathering and all the maintenance for shelter, clothing, and so on, would have been part-time work, most of it easy. A bit tedious at times, perhaps, but that's good time to share stories and songs.
Considering that no time was needed for commuting, or job interviews, or for buying, wearing and maintaining special clothes for work, the amount of leisure may have far surpassed our own. Would these people have been happier if they'd had as many ideas we have about how to use their free time? Is it right to assume that they couldn't have seen any more ways to be happy in their lives than we could find in our own?
And if the Law of One material is correct, might ideas have just as abundantly waited for humans to welcome them into their thoughts, way back then?
I don't know the answers here, I'm just sending out some more questions.
I'm not convinced that it's accurate to write off pre-industrial tribes as ignorantly stuck in pre-rational mysticism. They may well have had people every bit as intelligent, thoughtful, and creative as anyone we might encounter today on a sidewalk in New York City, Tokyo or London. They may have had a broader and deeper range of spiritual insights than our neighbors and colleagues today.
Another reference - again, sorry I don't have the citation - referred to hunter-gatherer tribes as only requiring about four hours of work a day to meet all of life's needs. Hunter groups might need to be gone for a week on the hunt, but then might have a month off. Gathering and all the maintenance for shelter, clothing, and so on, would have been part-time work, most of it easy. A bit tedious at times, perhaps, but that's good time to share stories and songs.
Considering that no time was needed for commuting, or job interviews, or for buying, wearing and maintaining special clothes for work, the amount of leisure may have far surpassed our own. Would these people have been happier if they'd had as many ideas we have about how to use their free time? Is it right to assume that they couldn't have seen any more ways to be happy in their lives than we could find in our own?
And if the Law of One material is correct, might ideas have just as abundantly waited for humans to welcome them into their thoughts, way back then?
I don't know the answers here, I'm just sending out some more questions.