Displaced Cave Dwellers who like Fish

I was raised in northern Ontario. I grew up participating in the annual smelt fishing run. Catching the spawning smelt was free food for the taking, and it was loads of fun. There’s nothing quite like us little chickens getting to stay up long past bedtime filling buckets to overflowing with wiggling things in two minutes flat. Once we had a couple of buckets full, community frolic and food would ensue into the wee hours.

One time my dad invited a couple from the city to join us. We were going smelt fishing at Newbie’s Creek. This city slicker who had never seen a smelt before got so frenzied about the whole ‘never-ending’ free food thing, that he didn’t know when to stop. We were stunned in amazement as this crazy person took out his back seat so he could load smelts in his car to full capacity.

We had gotten a ride to the creek in this guy’s car, so there was no ride home for us because the couple left us high and not-dry to go home with their fish. Dad and us young’uns had a nice philosophical conversation about every day garden variety madness. We also commented on how nice it was to be sitting so comfortably in the dark under the stars, on the seat the owner had ripped out of his car and left in the field.

Later, my dad’s vivid imagination played out with dramatic flair, as to what the aftermath of that couple’s journey to the city would look like (with the peanut gallery piping in about what the ‘aftermess’ would smell like). This display of human madness might just be one of the symptoms of those who have forgotten that they are displaced cave dwellers.

Why the Disconnect?

Our bodies haven’t been recalled back to the factory for modern upgrades. That leaves me wondering what kind of lifestyle and environment are we actually designed for, and what price do we pay for enduring the stresses of modern life? What kind of basic sensibility have we disconnected from?

A Normal Day for a Cave Dweller

Ideally, we gang together and run down a bison (or catch fish). Then we gang together and take it apart, then we store the bits and scurry about to store some for later. Then we open the grog, cook bison meat, eat and party. Once we had food ahead and we could chill for a bit; have time to fix things, maintain things, pursue relationships, make love and create cool things. Simple!

This is probably not the lifestyle you are living at present. Me neither. However, this is one of my grounding thoughts that help me to re-frame, and adjust my internal rudder when I am over-complicating my life unnecessarily. Those who know me may wonder, that as a health practitioner, where am a going with this?

Stress in the Modern World

Stress plays a huge role in illness. When it comes to the balance of desire, work and consume loop, we as a society are pretty disconnected. We can’t sort our needs from our wants; our priorities from our distractions. We have lost our sense of when we have enough. We’ve lost our sense of balance.

It is possible for a person living in modern times to remain connected with his simpler ‘cave dweller’ self? I had the rare privilege of living with a First Nation family for almost 2 years. It was a real eye-opener for me. A local highly skilled builder would take a job and work until it was done, and then refuse other jobs. When he had made enough money (to his own estimation), he would hang out at home for a while with his family (or go out on the lake fishing for a few weeks). Then he would turn up ready to go again and look for more paying jobs. Some folks thought he was crazy not to be working full time. They viewed him as not living up to his full potential. But this guy was happy. To him, he was living a life in balance.

In essence, he was living the cave dweller’s lifestyle. So what does having enough look like? How do we know ‘enough’ when we have striving and a fear of lack in wired into our soul? What would life look like as a cave dweller; to prioritize relationships and creative interludes? Would a cave dweller know how to be content within their means? Would they embrace ease, trusting that another mastodon would wander by?

Internal checkpoint for a balanced life

I have an internal list of sobering thoughts that keep me centred and balanced. This is list my menu of invitations to get my head screwed on right and my feet back on the ground: ‘Don’t get carried away Nelda, you are designed to live a simple life. You are just a displaced cave dweller’.