Failed Attempts at Being Us
If you look deeply at different languages and cultures what you actually see is different realities — quite literally different states of being. Think we westerners are so advanced? In some ways, sure, but in many other important ways we westerners are really quite obviously ignorant. If you are interested in how other people experience the world, check out this video: Wade Davis: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. It’s two hours. The photography is beautiful. The stories moving. The implications scary. Loved every minute. Here’s my favorite quote:
“Culture is only a manifestation of options. There is no ladder to success that conveniently places ourselves at the top. There’s no pyramid of success that places industrialized, Victorian society at the apex of the pyramid that slopes down to the so-called primitives of the world. There really only are a series of options. And so the other peoples of the world are not failed attempts at being us, they are unique answers to this fundamental question: what does it mean to be human and alive.”
So, it basically all comes down to two bits: choice and focus. That’s pretty much it.
