When an elephant calf is born in wild, she is quite wobbly and can barely keep herself above ground. After a short while though, she recognizes her mother by the smell and learns how to feed herself. The herd and the mother help the calf, but it already comes to the calf naturally and instinctively.
Human babies, on the other hand, are born in hospitals, with drugs, under bright artificial lights, all of that is paid for, with money, that is earned by doing xyz and there is the insurance and the birth certificate,…the list goes on. Hardly natural. Babies have no idea about these issues, none of it comes naturally. To me it indicates that in order to become a proper human being, existing in a “civilized” society, they need to learn how to behave under which circumstances and adapt to what we call life today.
We could all agree about the necessity of some form of education or a “life manual” then- If we were to live in woods, then chuck it. But in this environment, even for the most natural process of childbirth, we need it so we could keep up with the crazy pace. After all, as a society we all live side by side and need to agree at least on the basics, right?
Lately I find myself watching the old time videos that I’ve found on Youtube. Apparently these were published to educate the masses in the US.
Some people mention the good old days where there was an etiquette on how to behave and everyone wore pressed neat cloths and had brushed hair. Guess what, it was not because they were a different generation genetically, they were taught to be that way!
Everything you could imagine was discussed in detail, at times down to the most intricate psychological nuances. How to behave, how to make friends, how to have conversations, how to groom yourself, basically how to BE. How incredibly insightful and mindful.
Here are some examples, there are so many!
Almost all countries had some form of these public trainings. I can’t believe they stopped these. It’s as if someone pushed a button and said, well let’s go back to the jungle rules and see. During the 80s and the 90s it was incredibly empowering and freeing to have the opportunity to become what we truly are, but the truth is, freedom is a feeling we could only enjoy as long as there are boundaries and rules. So we can break them here and there and make it our own and feel “free” of them. Just like a baby: First learning her boundaries, then establishing that secure base to get comfortable, so she can safely explore the world safely. Now, at the end of the “freedom” phase that was still “defiant” to the status quo, we ran out of rules to defy.
Now the world is a chaotic place culturally and socially, we are constantly trying to catch up with something somewhere and barely have time for the things that are really important for us. “What” generally trumps “how”. The ends justify the means in a frightfully Machiavellian way and say, all the glasses shattered throughout the process is collateral damage. The problem is the glasses were the reason that we started the thing in the first place! Because life is what happens when we are wallowing in our massive mess. Basically rules are non existent, so are the values, and that void is filled by whatever marketing hype comes in to save the day, like say, a coffee from Starbucks in the morning becomes a societal norm and an indicator of our social profile.
It used to be that, the end did not justify the means. The only thing that mattered was not just getting things done.
Hair mattered, too. 🙂
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