The Paleolithic-Modern-Us

When I was visiting the Samburu nation in Kenya a few years ago, word came into camp that a lion had killed a cow from the nearby village. The head of the camp asked me to accompany Dipa, the local headman, to the village, to see what was going on.

A ten year old boy/man, armed only with a stick had been herding the cows, the fundamental wealth of the village. After the lion struck, the boy reasoned that since that cow was already dead, his best strategy was to let the lion eat, so it would have a full belly and no need to kill another cow. And then the boy calmly herded the rest of the cows back home, to safety.

When we found the partially eaten carcass, the lion had gone off into the bushes, to sleep off a full belly. Dipa pulled out his knife, sat on a rock, wiped the lion slobber off the carcass, cut off a chunk of meat, and began to eat. His gleaming, ostentatious, knock-off Rolex watch reflected sunlight as he motioned for me to join him. I wasn’t raised that close to the Stone Age, where starvation always threatens, and where meat will spoil quickly under the hot African sun. I declined.

Everyone of us is a child of our Paleolithic ancestors, — some of us more so, others less so — either through genes, or culture, or both. And at the same time, everyone of us, with our knock-off Rolex watch, our carbon fiber mountain bike, car, computer, or whatever, is inexorably linked to the modern world.

Our ancestors starved when the hunt was poor and feasted when food was available. And our bodies adapted. During the normal process of living, millions of our cells die every day. These cells must be destroyed and essential nutrients recycled. We have various metabolic processes to achieve this goal. One of these pathways originates from fasting. After you eat a meal, the food is completely digested and processed in about 15 hours. If you don’t eat again right away, then your body will search for the nutrition it needs to maintain basic metabolism, and will accelerate the consumption of dead cells. This recycling of tissue has been shown to help regulate the immune system and reduce the probability of Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other diseases.

Thus, not only is overeating and obesity bad for us, but the opposite — fasting — is vastly beneficial. And these fasts don’t have to be big deals. Simply not eating breakfast every now and then has multiple health benefits.

In so many ways, it is healthy to deprive our bodies. Eat less. Be cold. Don’t sit in a chair all day. Exercise until your lungs and muscles complain. Your body complains because it doesn’t know that the depravity is temporary. You skip breakfast, and your mind whines loudly, “Oh dear. Will I ever be fed again?” But at the same time, your body is more quietly rejoicing, “Thank you for not eating. This gives me a little time to do my necessary clean-up of those pesky dead cells.”

Humans evolved into a paradox, to strive for comfort but thrive in discomfort. We also evolved with a wondrous cerebral cortex that can examine a situation and make conscious decisions. And if we choose, we can not only find health, but deep contentment by listening to our mitochondria rather than the lazy parts of our think-too-much-know-it-all brain. Two short true stories amplify this point.

During the initial European conquest of the Western Hemisphere, Europeans sometimes kidnapped Native Americans as slaves, and, at the same time, Native Americans kidnapped Europeans, especially women. Those who were abducted from ‘civilization’ to ‘savagery’ moved from relative comfort to relative discomfort, and vice versa. But, nearly all Native Americans who were forcefully displaced into Western culture, tried to escape. On the other hand, a reasonably high percentage of the Europeans who ended up in the Native American camps and villages voluntarily elected to stay. They found the Consciousness Revolution while living in nature, their bodies rejoiced, and their minds found joy they hadn’t experienced within Western Civilization.

The second story is autobiographical. When I was in Kamchatka, in a Koryak village, I was introduced to Kutcha, the local Raven God. Our relationship became so powerful that I asked my teachers how I could go to the Other World (whatever that means) to thank the black bird who laughs at our foolishness as she soars on iridescent wings. The old shaman tried to lead me to Kutcha, on a spirit journey, while I remained in a house within the village. I failed to complete the journey. Oleg, the hunter, understood. “You must make your journey on the tundra,” he explained. “You will be cold, tired, and hungry. Your face will be frostbitten. You might die out there. But you will find Kutcha.”

And it all transpired as Oleg knew it would.

We all complain, externally or internally, when we become, cold, tired, hungry, and frostbitten. “Turn up the heat, relax on a comfortable chair, go to the fridge for a snack.” Our Paleolithic ancestors sought comfort as well, whenever they could. But we live in a different world now, where we have everything and more than everything. Therefore we make conscious cultural choices of what gifts of civilization to accept and what gifts to politely decline. And I write this to remind myself that the Paleolithic Me — cold, tired, and hungry from time to time — is a healthy and joyous place to be.