Twenty Two superior men, wearing the colours of South Africa (Springboks) and the Lions (England), facing each other ready to do Battle, edged on by their supporters.
This is how we cultured societies do WAR.
The principles remain the same: choose your best youth, train them in the art of battle, send them to maul the other countries best youths and cheer them on. They become national heroes if they win. Like in the old days they get honours bestowed on the, titles, money and statues are erected.
If this event at Parc deFrance in the 2007 rugby world cup is reminiscent battle before countries became cultured, then think of what it would have looked like before that – on the plains of Africa.
Imagine you are a Zulu and coming over a hill you notice in the plains below 15 lions and 15 springbuck squaring up with a leather covered cow bladder between them. They have fenced of the area so that no-one can get away from the other. They are obviously going to do battle over the bladder!
You might briefly think that this is going to be a slaughter of Springboks – a type of genocide they have allowed themselves to be tricked into.
People that live in Africa will tell you that they have never seen this, but they will also tell you that there will not be a genocide. At least not as much as there was in Parc de Franche.
What will happen is that the lions will lie around in the shade looking at the Springbuck. The Springbuck will be grazing sort of keeping an eye on the lion.
At some stage the male lion (there will only be one) will call over the she-lions and tell them to get him a springbuck.
The she-lions will ignore the bladder, as the springbuck has, and start to circle the springbuck, which will start to shuffle around with a bit of unease.
Once the she-lions have identified the weakest of the species among the springbuck they will quickly rush it. If they have been wrong and it is not the weakest, it will run away for a short distance, the she-lions will give up, the springbuck will continue grazing – as most of the other would have while this is all happening.
The she-lions will identify another one as being a most likely meal, rush it, and if they get it they will kill it. The male lion will wander over, smell the kill and have some meat. The she-lions will rest in the sun until he is done. He will then go to sleep, and they will have their bit.
The springbuck would have moved away a save distance, about the distance from the half-way line to the 22 meter line on a rugby field, and continue grazing, knowing they are save. They will probably even go to the same watering hole as the lions.
The principle of nature is that:
READ MY PRVIOUS BLOG ON THIS ISSUE!
This principle holds because no lion will run around when it is not necessary, and therefore no springbuck needs to run around when it is not necessary.
This is nature.
Humans evolved to the extent that we declare war. We have been doing this even BC. However, those wars were fought with very little preparation. The young men that were around were collected, send to a place where there was going to be a battle, edged on by the rest of the tribe.
The battle would mostly be short, comprising of people throwing things at each other or swinging sticks or swords at each other. One side will win. The other side will run away – for a short distance because no-one was really following them. This was very much like the lion and the springbuck.
This running by the losing side really relied on you being a bit faster than the guy who is following you. He is probably not putting much effort in running after you because he is as unfit as you.
In any case, why would he want to catch you when he is out of breath? You might just turn around and fight? So you know that he is running more to impress the young women of the tribe who are sitting on the nearby hill cheering him on.
So even in a less cultured (ancient) society than ours the principles of battle remained very similar to that of the lion and springbuck.
Then we evolved to the stage where we could really kill each other over long distances using guns and cannons. Once again there was no real reason to be able to run long distances fast. No matter how far you can run, or how fast you can do it in, you will never outrun a bullet or cannon ball.
The problem was that the rules have changed from the ‘rules of nature’. While the springbuck know they only have to outrun a lion for a short distance, maybe once or twice in their life, the modern soldier knows that no amount of running will get him far enough away.
The problem is of course that the women and old folk that sat on the hill cheering their young men onto great feats of heroism are now also got shot and bombed at. Suddenly things were not as much fun as before.
After the last big flings in Europe (WW I and WW II) countries realized that going back to the old ‘rules of nature’ is best. Don’t do battle – do Rugby, Soccer, Olympic Games, Wimbledon, etc. All of these things did not really exist before the World Wars, and all became big rapidly after the two wars.
So we are going back to the ‘rules of nature’.
Most of us have now seen what a real ‘civilised’ war would look like. That Hiroshima was really just a test market for such a very civilized war.
BUT, while we recognize how far wrong our progress into civilized war has been, and the benefits of a more ‘nature like’ war; we have not recognized how we have formed our visions about how we should be treating our bodies.
Much of what we propagate we should be doing to our bodies is a civilized and harmful as civilized war is. Possibly because we are holding up the Olympians and Spartans as role models of what we should all be. We forget that they trained in what was a most uncivilized and unnatural endeavour: To kill, on demand, for other people’s pleasure.
This booklet is about:
Thinking about being ‘natural’,
Thinking about what nature requires of us,
Thinking about what is really natural,
Using the examples nature gives us about what natural is.
Even a great white shark does not exercise to becoming a super-fit killing machine, seldom exerts itself, only kills what it wants to eat, and only trains up to that required level. Mostly it does not care about what the other sharks think of it.
In writing this book I have found many examples in nature of how we can live a natural life. In fact, I have yet to find examples in nature that replicates our health and fitness fanaticism.
I use the word ‘fanaticism’ wisely. I am not writing about the real fanatics, although I write about that too, I am talking about all of us – including you – that have some of this fanaticism in you.
My major concern is that this little bit of ‘fanaticism’ you have makes you worry about your level of fitness, and this leads you to be depressed by your body not being the body you are taught that you should have.
Knowing that you will never have such a body makes one depressed. The Dutch call it (Gemoedsbekak). This word describes your mood attacking you (like the words ‘a heart attack’ describes your heart attacking you).
Look at nature. How many animals do you see that have their mood attack them? Very few and very seldom, and mostly the cause is easily identifiable. Maybe we should be like them.
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