Thoughts Afire

While I wrote my check for a teeth cleaning, the dentist's office crew teased one of their own about setting the island on fire. Naturally I was intrigued and asked, “what island” and other related questions. I discovered that a mother was taking her son and his friends on a special “field” trip the coming Saturday. They were to hunt for animals. Then prepare, cook over a campfire, and eat what they caught.
And I keep thinking of the wonderful experience these boys have as a result of exercising the natural instinct of hunting. They would have a real link with their evolution. What influence would such experience have in ten or twenty years on young men as compared with boyhood experiences of team sports or other physical endeavors? Looking at occupations men sought in the past, I see business management, accountant degrees, and professions with high economic return – medicine, insurance, and banking. Except for the new technology invented more recently, the pure sciences of physics and mathematics were sorely neglected.
Were the sciences too complicated for mens brains? I don't think so. The human brain developed exactly by the physics and math of evolution. So what happened? Did the economic system, fueled by human greed in the last fifty years, channel the major providers (men) away from nature? Will over population and over production of toys be recognized for the disasters that they are? Hope prevails. Smart thinking is not limited to the past.
Keeping my teeth and gums healthy will no doubt be of great value in my longevity. Is one among billions enough? Collective human thoughts must work with the speed of fire to resolve problems upon the whole earth. Great thoughts, creative planning, and decisive actions will provide a good quality of life on Carl Sagan's small blue dot, our own personal space ship on which we move with the cosmos.
Naomi Sherer