“We don’t just share our lives with animals; we are animals — a reality that we often choose to forget in modern Western culture. Research published in the June special issue of SAGE journal, Social Science Information (SSI), delves deeper into our relationship with other creatures, critically examining our own animal nature, and looking at how animals profoundly influence our culture — perhaps more so than we had initially thought.” (from Science Daily 6/5/13)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130605133712.htm
A friend of mine, another Cave Dweller like me, sent me this link this morning. I’m not sure how it’s relevant to my quest to understand my desire to step away from 21st century society and the strange demands I feel it puts on me as a human/spiritual being, but it’s an interesting article.
“To be human does not mean to have fled animality, but on the contrary to live within it and to let it live within us…we are animals and animals are us.” And that is an intriguing idea.
In some respects, I think we’ve evolved beyond our early survive-by-the-seat-of-our-pants (or animal skin shorts) mentality. Then again, sometimes I think we’ve simply learned to design better clothes and weapons, added more social structure for crowd control, and that we’re all Cave Dwellers at heart just trying to survive in our modern world.
What do you think?
Cave Dweller: Alone in a Social World 