Socialism is NOT Paleo podcast!

If you are like me, you have a strong urge to sequester yourself away, living as full and healthy of a life as I can.  Working on my land, my few acres upon which there is always something that needs doing!  I’ve had numerous large trees come down this year, and some I’ve cut up- others are waiting, waiting for me to have the time to cut them, move them, stack them, and stack and/or burn the brush.  

I’ve had trouble with my old 1962 Ford pickup that needed taking care of, and well, you get the idea- I’m sure your own life is just as beset with complications that demand your immediate attention.  But the king of them all for me is our latest- a kitchen remodel!  Oh my gosh, you haven’t lived until you have washed dishes in a tub outside with your garden hose for over 6 weeks, and had no stove or sink at all.  (At least downstairs- the upstairs remodel was last year)!

And now, we have a wonderful, super-functional new kitchen.  Just have to get all of the furniture out of the dining room and the garage, and back inside, and finish off the downstairs bath…

Here is my point.  My paramount goal is to live peacefully in my rural setting, tending a large garden, seeing my neighbors and grandchild regularly, and cooking, reading, exercising, playing music, and writing.  It seems as if that would be easy to attain, especially now that I am officially retired.

It’s not.  Life really does happen- emergencies of all sorts, deaths and births, joys and tragedies- they are so much a part of the fabric of life that sometimes we forget- we don’t really have an option to just become a sort of happy recluse, indulging our own interests.  We are part of our tribe, and as much as we individualistic Westerners want to believe otherwise- the tribe takes precedence.  It is our duty to care for and help our family and friends, our sacred obligation, really.

But don’t think this means that we are required to take care of outsiders- the indolent, illegal immigrants, those that refuse to try, that expect to be supported as a right, whether native or foreign born!  These should be viewed as either hostile invaders in the first case, or bad seeds to be weeded out in the other.  A vital “tribe” can only thrive with ‘all hands rowing the boat’.  

Sorry- that was my brief rant on how some think that to be compassionate or accepting we need to support any sort of cultural rot that is shoved at us.  We don’t, and we should be ever vigilant about such stuff, forced upon us by a Big Government, whether it be Rome or any other more modern, socialist sort of tyranny.  I personally believe that we have escaped such a socialist tyranny with the last election, but just as in our personal lives: we are never “home free”.  There is always more to do!

My point is this: try to not bemoan your lot, (as I sometimes do, until I stop myself), thinking ‘Why can’t I just be left alone?  I have so much to do, so much that I want to do, and so and so needs this, and I really should help this person’- and on and on.   We all need to just stop, and think ‘I am here to live my life, and to do the best job that I can.  I am needed here, and that is enough.’

Easy to say, and hard to do.  Especially as we are surrounded by movie actors, politicians, business people, and all sorts of celebrities that do precisely the opposite:  they are self-centered to an extreme, and partly because of this, they have become rich, famous, celebrated, and powerful!  It is tempting to copy them, to be more and more centered on self; working aggressively and always for our own advantage above all!  Why not, right- it’s worked for them?!

Because it is not right.  It is not good.  And ultimately, historically and evolutionarily: It is not Tribal!   

If members of ancient tribes had acted in this way, our kind would have died out long ago.  Just as we need to eat in an evolutionary way, eschewing modern processed foods in favor of real foods, vegetables and fruits and pastured meats and dairy, wild seafood- to be healthy and in tune with nature and our bodies-

We need to act in an evolutionary, tribal sort of way.  Doing what is right.  Right for the tribe, and our family.  It’s how we evolved, and for a good reason-  a selfish tribes person was ultimately ostracized, for the good of the tribe.  It was not to be vengeful, or mean- it was just necessary.

The evolutionary principle is obvious.  We all need to be good.