I know, it has been awhile. Back then we were equals, we took our share, we fed our families. Sure we had our differences, you were tall and lanky, great runners.We were shorter, squatter but muscular and tough.You were decent hunters but you didn’t have the chops for the up close and personal. That was our speciality. No namby pamby chucking spears from a distance, we took our long spears and looked the beast, be it eurochs or mammoth, in the eye. Hand to hand combat, we lost a few both prey and ourselves but that was the price to be part of this community and without this community, we don’t exist anyway. You did come up with the idea of running the herd off the cliff and collect the big pile of meat at the bottom but that didn’t seem right somehow, sort of like cheating. Maybe that was a sign of things to come.
When you first arrived from the southern continent, I admit we were a little apprehensive but it seemed like we were equals and respected the community. One thing though, a quirk of your nature if you will, your attitude seemed to be a bit more about you and less about the rest of us. That thing about the cliff again, it was more meat than you needed. How the herd supposed to regenerate itself? Were you afraid of breaking a nail? Not to mention the breeding. How many of you do you need? For jump’s sake, everybody has infant mortality but no you have make another child right away. Don’t wait for next season just keep breeding for insurance.How are you going feed all these people? Keep running herds of game off those cliffs? What happens when they’re all gone? How are all of us going to eat? Didn’t think of that did you? Or maybe you don’t care.
Well all those herds are gone and so am I. What happened to you? There’s so many of you and you’re so sickly. I guess you kept exporting your philosophy to different regions of the world and kept ending up in the same situation. Nice going “Wise Man”!
Listen Earth Day just passed. A special day you’ve concocted to honor the community we were part of and now you seem to so revile. Think of what we once had and now where you’re heading. The community will have it’s way in the end. You are going to die despite your best efforts. How about making a better life for less of you rather than a more miserable existence for a lot of you. Radical stuff eh? Before you write me off as some old fuddy duddy from the past keep in mind I existed for 250,000 years . You’ve been around, as you are now for what? 60,000? I really don’t see you hitting 100,000 sorry. Anyway I’ll get you go. You know how to reach me and the effort it will take but here’s hoping. —Homo Neanderthalis
This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2013.
Ah yes the good old days when every day was Earth Day.
Oh for the love of crimony. The Deepak Choprah of the Cro-Magnon No More movement.
You lost – deal with it.
The Neanderthals were the original hippies, they made love not war. Just not enough. Their birth rate was greatly outstripped by archaic Homo Sapiens. The Neanderthal genome was mapped about two years ago and while no modern human genes were found in that genome, about 4% of the European population are carrying Neanderthal DNA.
Most of that is found in the Italian parliament. (j/k sort of)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/02/…
me, i am counting on that plague to enforce a little population decline. hope it waits til i get that island and have my 2 X 2 animals behind a very large stockade. anything 2 legged that survives the puke n chute can take their chances swimming my moat while i practise my lousy aim.
has anyone taken part in that nat geo genome survey?
http://themetapicture.com/media/funny-nean…
Welcome back, GDM.
^^ but i retain my 60’s slogan ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ so popping off at 30 is just about right.
and…..since my verbal sphincter hasn’t been exercised lately, i will add more….what is the evolutionary POINT to living past 30? breed at 15-16 and stick around long enough to get them to breeding age and you have fulfilled your purpose. maybe your ‘special purpose’ to quote steve m.
I don’t trust anyone over 30, either. Of course, I don’t trust anyone under 30.
“Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
I pray for no man but myself:
Grant I may never prove so fond,
To trust man on his oath or bond;
Or a harlot, for her weeping;
Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping:
Or a keeper with my freedom;
Or my friends, if I should need ’em.”
Okay. I trust dogs. Kittehs too,
for what are gods but man’s own odds
when thrown against a wall of angst
a dicey chance, mortality
That bloody wall of angst. I hate that thing.
and welcome back Molly.
THE NEANDERTHAL PHILOSOPHY
“philosophy, n. – Love of wisdom or knowledge, esp. that which deals with ultimate reality, or with the most general causes or principles of things.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary
“I guess you kept exporting your philosophy to different regions of the world and kept ending up in the same situation.” Homo Neanderthalis
But what “philosophy” is Homo Neanderthalis talking about? Clearly, it isn’t about Homo Sapiens’ love of wisdom or knowledge, the ultimate reality, or with the most general causes or principles of things. He must be speaking about “philosophy” in some extended but muddled sense of the word.
And what can he possibly mean by “exporting” our philosophy to different regions of the world? Is love of wisdom or knowledge, especially that which deals with ultimate reality or with the most general causes or principles of things, something one can “export” like a load of coconuts? No, Homo Neanderthsalis must be talking about something else? But what?
It was, of course, Robert Malthus, the 18th. century economist who maintained that while food supply increases only arithmetically, population increases geometrically with the result that population will continually press upon food supply resulting in cyclical famines and ultimately in possible extinction of the species. Is Homo Neanderthalis a Malthusian? But advances in agricultural and human sciences have rendered Malthusian economic theory – the “dismal science” – moot.
So what remains of the “Neanderthal Philosophy”? Beyond a generalized injunction to live in harmony with nature – taking no more than you need to survive – there seems to be very little content to the concept. Homo Neanderthalis, in other words, should refine his concepts in general and that of philosophy in particular.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
P.S. Nice to see you back GDM.
Sorry, I hit snooze. No need to wake up yet, it’s not an emergency.
so much of food not really um food anymore though. by and large. odd kinds of paste and goo in lurid colours packed in eye catching packages. friend on FB at a conference ‘away’ mentioned that no one used their knife at luncheon. cutlery too complex now? people want food that can be eaten one handed. feed bags around the neck will be next i suppose. just dip your head and suck it up. and the food bank has to dump fresh vegetables and fruit, no one wants it. possibly because they don’t know how to prepare it. a bag of carrots or potatoes, what do you do with them? you could eat so well for so little cooking from basics. and at the other end of the spectrum people cooking with exotic ingredients daily. a gap. i have been thinking about the widening gulfs between people. it feels like it’s increasing, but could be just human tendency to think their own times are the worst of times.
i think i have been too twitterized lately. chopped sentences, articles nowhere to be found. i’ll try to think about that.
You’ve cut your sentences into neat colorful packages that you can hold with one hand GDM. 😉
I agree that most generations think their time is the worst of times and that is the case now. That said unless the depopulation mode starts to kick in, future generations will be quite accurate in that summation.
taking a break from gardening…in the past week reg, i have screened about a cubic yard of compost (net) and cut the sidewalls off 2 doz old tires to set up raised beds. i still get giddily thrilled at the thought of all that rich black crumbly stuff appearing like magic after a winter of cardboard, coffee grounds, peelings and egg shells. for FREE! ( we won’t mention the $10,000 labour cost)
re the best of times, the worst of times. a fortunate accident of birth blessed me with being born in this country, and the time i was born and with 10 fingers and toes and all working parts. just a drive into town and i am astounded that i can drive with no checkpoints, no armed sociopaths lying in wait to chop off my arms, the road itself is a marvel, and stores at the end of it with more than i could ever want or need. with all the bitching about trivial crap. if someone has to take the bus, no car, are you being raped with a metal pipe by the driver and five of his friends? do your children have leprosy and no hope of medicine? if your apt pipes clang or leak, you are not walking 5 miles with a bucket on your head to get silty water. if i believed in any kind of god, i would say i am blessed.