So I finally caved and decided to give New Game + a whirl which means now we've got to take the four pages of the original trackers used for round one.... and make it into a redux tracker for speedrun. Because speedrun will probably make it easier to knock over those few outstanding hunts and side quests.
Nearly broke my brain but I think that it turned out pretty okay, given the circumstances.
(I do wish I had put the BIG esper gem in the middle and had two smaller groups of 2x3 small gems either side but alas. Too late now lol)
[The following is a great conversation during which a few stories of my adventures, along with Dear Friend, are related. I could have edited out the rest of the conversation and left the stories only, but these types of conversation are a big deal to me. For decades, the only conversations of this nature were with my dear friend and companion in the stories. For me, this kind of conversation is exceedingly precious. I like to share them. When one is wandering in the wilderness, the certain knowledge that there is an oasis out there is extremely comforting. And where it starts is not where it ends...]
M: - Re: Theme- That's been one of the positives of FB for me, seeing the theme. Not so much creating one, and seeing it develop, like, this is your theme, even if the oscillations are wide and it takes a while for the pattern to repeat, it does, and shows me something I wasn't aware of before. I mean, I knew I liked cats... but really?!
S
: - Yes, so yes. I love that we get to see parts of ourselves more clearly, and completely new ones. So awesome.
M: - It shows you your own interests, over time.
S
: - Yes. Talking about reflection, it struck me that the Bushman post didn't garner any comments, just seems unusual somehow.
M: - Maybe the experience is sufficiently alien to most people that they didn't know how to hook onto it.
S
: - Yes - that's one of the things I wonder. I figured for sure somebody would have asked me their names after my comment.
M: - Maybe if you showed a more universal point there.
S
: - Yes - well, I make them for me, but there are quite a few more stories from that experience which are meaningful to me and some are definitely more Universal. The entire issue of perspective, lol, much like the cat, it was very different for the Bushmen.
M: - And, what do you mean when you say "the entire issue of perspective"?
S
: - Ha sorry, I mean in that we assume how we perceive the world is the same for most humans, I mean in basic things. but not so. I went...
M: - There's the point to latch on to.
S
: - I went tracking with them quite a few times, we were on a private game reserve and new game had been brought in. We tracked them after release to make sure that they were ok as they were very expensive. The Bushmen were amazing at the tracking, they did it mostly on the trot, rarely stopping to examine the prints, only in extremely rocky terrain. It was evident from observing them that they were gleaning the information, as a whole, the way we listen to music for instance, or mostly do. ...
S
: - Ah yes, longish story.
M: - This should all be incorporated with the other part, the crossbow part. And develop the question about what we know, and what we assume we know, about how we are alike and different. Sorry. Don't mean to coach.
S
: - Ah - yes, I aim to make separate posts, otherwise it will be very long.
S
: - No - I love it, it's awesome feedback - thanks, truly thanks.
...I noticed that they seemed to be doing the tracking on a non-conscious level, there certainly was no evidence of analysis and logical constructions and conclusions and so on. Of course I couldn't be sure so I decided to test my hypothesis...
M: - Athletes call it the zone. Body-knowledge, allowing the unconscious processes to happen.
S
: - I had a book of animal footprints. I showed this to them and asked them to tell me to which animals the footprints belonged. They were not even close. I tested with most of them separately, wanted to be as scrupulous in my testing as possible. They all were guessing. And they were wrong every time, it was fascinating.
M: - Yes, they are not thinking of it analytically, as in comparing to a picture.
S
: - Yes. So I said nothing to them and individually went to a footprint I knew to be of an animal in the book I had asked about,
M: - Like when you can drive straight to a place in a big city, having been there only once before long ago, if you don't think about it. I never get lost, even in the woods, because I don't think about it. Truly.
S
: - I took them individually, and asked them to tell me what they saw from the footprint. I got the most detailed analysis, that is was a female and that she was pregnant, which I knew to be true from the owners who had told me they had purchased this particular animal that way, to how fast she was moving and so on.
S
: - And yes, I believe you about the woods, I will share an interesting perspective on that later.
M: - I've escaped great danger on more than one occasion by not-thinking. Suspending my mind and letting my body make the decisions, or like that.
S
: - Anyway, I was observing them very very closely during this, All of them simply gave the footprint in question a glance and then proceeded to tell me all this information and more. Now if someone had asked me that same question I would have had to examine the print, analyse the depth and shape etc. etc. and then draw my inferences and conclusions. It was a great illustration of right and left brain thinking. Now the danger is here that we assume that it is necessarily a difference, no, it is simply a matter of practice. I taught myself to become an excellent golfer, to scratch, late in life, so it was a very conscious process, and we can learn to behave and operate similarly if we want to.
M: - That's so cool, Syl. You should write all that Bushmen stuff up in a piece.
It's like wholism.
S
: - Yes, thanks, I will, when a story is relevant to be told it comes out - and this I thank you for a lot. Pulling them out.
M: - They were looking wholistically.
S
: - Yes, I loved that about them, but it also had it's drawbacks many times. We really do need both I think, and from being with them that really helped me see that.
One more related little story while I'm on it...
*
S
: - They eat everything, and I mean everything, from grasshoppers to donkey, doesn't matter what, they'll eat it. Ever the fascinated scientist and curious as hell I went and asked each and every one of them, separately and individually, which was quite the challenge in itself as they are very social, what their favorite things to eat were. Things plural, I didn't want to bias the results.
M: - And?
S
: - The answers I got ranged tremendously, from Eland, to camel, and the woman who liked camel made a point to explain that it was the humped back kind, not giraffe, in the common language we spoke those two had some similarities in the name, and she had eaten giraffe also. But one thing was common, if it wasn't the outright favorite it was one of them, and this was wild donkey. It was hands down that particular group of bushmen's favorite food.
M: - I imagine the wild donkey was a relatively rare treat?
S
: - So where we were on was on top of a very large flat mountain, and there was a deep gorge and another flat mountain on the other side, well relatively flat anyway. I had seen some wild donkeys on the other side of the gorge and knowing it was their favorite and wanting to go hunting with them I asked them if they would like to go hunting the donkeys the next day, it was late afternoon when I asked. They all were very enthusiastic and very keen and I left with them expressing eagerness for the hunt the next day...
S
: - Yes on the rareness of the donkey.
M: - Donkey is always better rare.
S
: - When I came back the next morning all eager and ready to go, no-one was around really, they were kinda doing whatever and no-one had the least bit of interest in going hunting.
Lol on the rare - have a nice story about eating it later....
M: - I found the same with the Indonesians. Commitment of the evening would fade by daylight. And that was totally fine. Plans were ideas, not schedules.
S
: - I was most perplexed at this lack of enthusiasm. Only one guy was sort of, more or less keen to go. So I went around and asked them. "But you were so eager yesterday, what happened?" and "Were not not really eager yesterday?" - the common reply, "Yes I was, but that was yesterday?"
They explained that yesterday when they said they were eager they meant it, but that was then, and now they were feeling differently...
M: - I still strive to live that way.
S
: - Yes, it is quite awesome, always be appropriate to the time of now.
M: - There are powers greater than myself to whom I must jump when they say, of course, but much other stuff is self-imposed, and unnecessary. Your heart-mind, or whatever you call it, works best when you LET it work. Duh.
S
: - Yes, definitely.
S
: - Undaunted in my quest to go hunting with them, I waited for another morning when most seemed uninvolved and would be free to go hunting, and all were fairly close by. "Who wants to go hunting for wild donkey right now," I said so that they could all hear. I got an overwhelming enthusiastic response and everyone came to me ready to go.
M: - I'm typing on a TV tray, because I lent my desk to a friend who is staging a house for sale.
Great story! You have a knack.
S
: - "Ok, let's go" I said, and nothing happened. Lol, they looked at me like I was crazy. I repeated that I was ready to go and started walking in the direction of the wild donkeys. More curious stares and still nothing from them. When I asked what's wrong they said to me as if explaining to a child: "But where's the Land Rover and the guns?"
M: - Oh no... LOOLOL
S
: - Hahaha yes, it was so awesome, stopped me right dead in my tracks. A-hole that I had been in all my assumptions lol.
M: - And Syl said, "To hell with that! I got a helicopter!"
Yeah, it's the approach. We all approach the same things, but in different ways.
S
: - It took me the whole day to explain I wanted to go hunting with them using their bows and arrows, to learn how they do it and that I wanted to experience it for myself. This was incomprehensible to them. Why the hell anyone would want to do it in the most difficult way when an easier one was at hand was completely beyond them.
[...]
S
: - Yeah - it was awesome. And I remember this every time I see people lamenting the loss of "traditional" ways. And the arrogance that goes with that. Lol, try living "traditionally' and then come and say the same.
They were a great bunch to be with.
M: - There's no "right" way. There are better or worse ways. The attraction of the formal as heuristic.
"Right" is a mental shortcut for "best". But you gotta check back with the source occasionally. Make sure the situation hasn't changed.
S
: - Yes - for sure.
*
S
: - Oh lol, the eating Donkey story. So I had told the owners of the game reserve that donkey was their favorite food and asked if they could get some. They had chalets for tourists and my Dear Friend and I had a restaurant on the reserve but only really had business on the weekends so spent the rest of the time with the Bushmen. The restaurant is another long story for another time.
The owners sent some donkey which I was very happy to deliver to them.
M: - And it was the worst shite ever, I have NO doubts.
S
: - Haha no, but wait, more to come lol.
They didn't cook it right away interestingly enough. They had unusual living arrangements, or lack of arrangements more accurately. Someone would make a fire, and their fires were the most marvelous examples of thrift and efficiency. They would cook a meal with wood maybe the size of a hand. The smallest stingiest fires you ever did see. Well, someone would start a fire as the mood or need took them and they had these tiny cast iron pots, not much bigger than two fists put together.
So I came to their camp and smelled something cooking and it was fantastic. Makes my mouth water even now thinking of it. I asked very politely and detachedly what it was. I didn't want to preempt them offering me some because they didn't have much. They told me it was the donkey.
M: - Man, I love the way you repeat the hand thing in both the fire and the pot. You are like a freakin' Hemingway sometimes. And the way to build up the expectation of the meat, the smell, salivating, all of it. You're a good writer.
S
: - Lol, it smelled so incredible, and as was their way every now and then someone would come by and simply help themselves and go on their way again. It wasn't exactly a communal pot, it was just accepted that it was ok and the privilege was never abused. There was no formality or rules to this sharing, it simply happened. It was most marvelous to observe.
S
: - Lol and cool thanks.
M: - The teasing withholding of "detachedly." Are you plagiarizing this stuff?
S
: - So the day goes by and my resolve to not ask them to taste the donkey weakens steadily until I cannot bear it anymore. I very cautiously and tentatively ask if I could, possibly, maybe, try a little bit of the donkey...
M: - It's like- no rules, because we'd know abuse when we see it?
S
: - The woman who had cooked it leaves me without answering at all and a few moments later bedlam breaks out in the camp.
M: - What the HELL...
S
: - Now I am most distressed - what could I have possibly done to cause all the consternation. I see some of the them going from one living space to the next, seemingly looking for something. There is much energetic discussion, something is obviously amiss.
Yes - my sentiments exactly. And I have great affection for them and have always made every effort to be as respectful as possible. I am feeling the right heel and turd so I finally manage to ask someone what the problem is.
M: - No silverware!
S
: - Yes. They explained, with much embarrassment and reluctance, that my request put them in an awkward position. They were most embarrassed to say but they sadly could not comply to my request. (the formality was very much a part of their reply) Because no one in the camp possessed the appropriate crockery and cutlery as which was fitting to someone of my station.
M: - At which point, you snapped your fingers, and your general, seeing the sign, summoned the footmen to bring your silver service.
S
: - Well I of course was completely flummoxed and also thoroughly relieved. "Ah, no worries, I said, "I'll just grab some out of the pot with my fingers if you don't mind." I had seen others do this so it wasn't rude in the context.
But my relaxed happy comment and relief that it was such a trivial issue was short lived. Immediately I said that, bedlam once again broke out...
M: - Not more bedlam in the camp! You don't want me to have to start singing "Silent Night" do you?
S
: - This time a more happy bedlam, they really were like a bunch of children oftentimes, the bedlam was more like when kids are really involved in something. The next thing I know, the entire group, even man woman and child, grandpa, grandma, the entire lot, were sitting atop and around Dear Friend and I. We were literally physically touching each and every one of them all at the same time. It was a most incredible experience and brings tears to my eyes relating it now.
Unbeknownst to me, my comment had had the most profound effect. They immediately understood that my friend and I did not prescribe to that way of thinking, class thinking etc, and that eating from the pot was no big deal at all for us, just as it wasn't for them. Because of this realization, we instantly went from being "outsiders' to becoming part of the group. They were running their fingers through our hair as we sat all together like that, and pretty much everyone held my hand and some point, mostly it was a few hands at a time. They are a small people. They were absorbing us, getting the feel of us. They were taking us in. By getting as close as physically possible, we all became as one.
I was duly brought a piece of the donkey meat, on a chipped and cracked plate that to me then was one of the most beautiful pieces of crockery I had ever seen. And of course it was delicious, beyond delicious, I can most definitely say it was the most delicious meat I had ever tasted. And I can truly say, one of the hardest things I have ever done... was not asking for seconds.
***
M: - Beautiful story, Syl.
Thanks for sharing it with me.
S: - Lol, sorry the typing is slow -that is the end of that story
And truly my pleasure, thanks for listening.
Wow thanks, I suppose when we communicate from so deep within it comes out good. That is why I love them, they almost always have that extra ending to them.
Lol and the flippancy helps me - I get a bit overwhelmed with these stories - they were, and are, intensely profound for me. They are not just simply things that happened, they affect my life every day and they are constantly with me and influence everything I do.
M: - Yes, flippancy is good tool to deflect the brunt of emotional impact sometimes. I try to do it kindly, and in a respectful way.
S
: - Yes, that intent is always clear to me. I'll clean it up and make a nice post of it later, thanks M, I have told this story quite a few times verbally, but never in type, and it came out very nicely, thanks a bunch, you helped a lot.
-Haha, btw, lots and lots more stories, it's been a wild ride, still is...
***
To me, these stories of mine are stories of spirit, or stories of the spirit, whichever one prefers, the spirit of man. The fact that they happened as related doesn't alter that. I can only really tell them when I am telling them to someone. Then it is easy, I have the motivation, which is otherwise lacking. I simply go inside to the memory, which is now much more clearly available to me, and relate it as it unfolds as best I can. The events have their own momentum and logic, I am a passenger mostly.
For me there is more to them also, much more, I don't mean in terms of the emotional experience or the lessons learned or the awareness gained, yes those are extremely powerful and profound, but there is more to it even than that for me.
When I came to the events in these stories, naïve and innocent as I sometimes was, that was not the whole of it. I had before then spent considerable time, and had made an inordinate and sustained effort to learn, to expand my awareness, to understand the world and people and the abstract, and all things philosophical and religious and spiritual. This was not even a random effort, but a large cohesive project. I am relating this not because of some ego point or anything like that. What I did anyone could have done had they had the motivation that chanced upon me. That motivation made all the difference. I relate this purely to provide perspective for the point I want to make.
The root of the power in these stories for me is Goodness. All that effort of mine did make a huge difference yes, and it did change me enormously, but the key piece of the puzzle that I only came to realize much much later, was that I had actually started from a point of goodness. I had always been a good person. This was, and is, a profound realization. I was extremely motivated to expand my awareness, to understand, to find that which I could apply in my daily life in order to enhance my living. And what I had found is all good.
But had I started with the understanding of my own goodness, the process would have been very different and much less wasteful. Being Good inherently doesn't mean we don't need to learn. Not at all, the learning is still the same, but if we know that we are good to start with we don't get stuck in the always learning perspective. I see this all the time in the electronic age. We are constantly searching, searching for that something, driven by the pressure of our lack of acceptance of our own goodness.
We don't stop to apply. In my stories that is the theme to me. Had I accepted my goodness,
I would been looking around less at what to learn and been more focused on applying what I had already learned. That is a profound shift. It seems so simple. But it is not. Doubting one's goodness, or not even being aware of it, has enormous consequences. We end up in situations where this is the essential lesson. And not learning it causes all sorts of complications. We pay attention to what is not appropriate, we miss opportunities to apply. We waste energy and time in questioning and re-learning what has already been learned.
And it is not that I ever thought of myself as bad, no, never that, but it was not a conscious deliberate thought either, until much later. Being a good person, to me is about intent, and desire and wishes. What we truly want for ourselves and for others, how we feel about others, how we relate to their successes and failures, their joy and their pains.
Being good alone is not enough. Neither are life skills, or awareness or understanding. They need each other. Goodness without awareness leads to all sorts of trouble, we assume what is good for us is good for others and so on. And that is a large subject. The point here is that awareness, understanding, compassion, discernment and insight into people without the conscious awareness and acknowledgment of our own goodness also leads to problems. We never learn to enjoy what is, in all its marvelous excellence.
We end up chasing our tails trying to satisfy this feeling that we are missing something and all the learning, awareness and understanding in the world makes not one whit of difference. But once we do make peace with our own essential goodness, the entire process changes. Now the task becomes one of learning how to enjoy our goodness more. How to be more effective and judicious in the application of our goodness. How to be more responsible in its application.
This is the thread of spirit for me. Had I learned this more thoroughly a lot earlier I would have enjoyed my adventures so much more at the time. They would have been discoveries of how to enjoy my own goodness more, how to apply it and enjoy the connection to the goodness that was a constant throughout my adventures and still is. The learning and the lessons that were, and are, so fantastic would have been celebrated more and would have had even more significance. Of course this is a hindsight perspective but I see so so much unacknowledged goodness every day that it motivates me to communicate this.
The pure unadulterated Goodness of my Bushmen friends reminded me of this. Reminded me that simply *Being* Good is enough. Being Good is enough of a Doing Good. There is no need for more.
[A note on the photographs. They are of the place where we were. The picture of the woman accompanied by the man with a crutch is the woman who had cooked the donkey meat. And the antelope is the same kind as we tracked.]
