When Cassie and I were at the Midway airport in Chicago, we saw a couple that stuck out.  They didn’t ‘fit’ into the normal picture.  They appeared to be an older Mexican couple.  The man wore a cowboy hat and boots, the woman in a dress.

We were at the gate watching and the airline didn’t let them on the plane.  They closed the door and the couple looked very confused.  It was apparent that they did not speak English and were out of sorts.

Cassie went over to try and help the couple and the airline folks translate.  She found out that they were actually from Guatemala and not only didn’t speak much English but were hardly literate. They were scared and lost without anyone to help them. They were on their way to New York City to visit family and had somehow gotten standby tickets, but they did not know what that meant and had felt abandoned at the airport. As standby passengers, since the plane had filled up, they didn’t get on.

This couple had more or less left directly from their finca and this was their first flight or trip out of Guatemala ever. They needed to get a hold of their family in NY and let them know that they would be on another flight (once Cassie helped them get straightened out with a confirmed ticket).  I handed them my phone to use.  Cassie looked at me and said something like, “Um…I think you should probably dial it for them.”

Modern Man Tool

Rethinking my action I agreed.  They would have never seen many cell phones, let alone the new touch screen smart phone.  I dialed the number, handed it to Miguel and he looked at it like it was an alien spaceship.  The phone is enough like an actual phone so he could hold it up to his ear and talk.  I think that puts him somewhere technology wise in the 1930s or 1950s. It was clear that this modern life was not comfortable in the least to this couple. 

Fast forward to Cassie and my daily life….

We have been watching a lot of Survivor type shows that take place in tropical locations.  The most recent we have been watching is Naked and Afraid.  We started to watch them simply because they took place in the Tropics.  Like most things, these shows have changed our worldview a bit in ways that we didn’t expect.

When you see people trying to survive without all the modern conveniences of society and try to live off food from the ocean, or the jungle you see that humans, for the most part are not able to live outside of society for very long.  We can’t drink water, we can’t find food, fire is hard to start without matches and being wet sucks.

In the Naked and Afraid show it is surprising how even survival specialists who teach classes on the subject, fail when it comes to actually surviving in the wild!

I have been contrasting this with the life that I live in a corporate world that consists of driving, sitting in front of a computer screen working with abstract ideas and concepts, eating pre-made pre-packaged food and taking walks for exercise.  I can’t help but notice that I have been completely removed from nature.  I, unlike the Guatemaltecos in the airport, have been raised in American schools in order to domesticate me to the society in which I was anticipated to exist.  I know how to form and stand in lines, how to type and to a lesser degree use hand writing (they have now stopped teaching cursive in a lot of schools). I understand all the various hoops one must jump through to do anything nowadays. I was trained to sit at a desk all day long and I know how to work within a diverse group to achieve a goal that has been given to me by a leader, teacher, manager or other figure of authority.

All of these modern skills are useful in my society.  They are what the corporation is looking for in their resources.  However these modern skills are almost useless in nature or on a finca.  I can’t start a fire without matches, I don’t know what things I can eat and making a sturdy shelter without a home depot would be a challenge.

Contrasting this with the Guatemalan couple, I would bet that they would do much better on the survival shows than even the so-called survival experts.  They aren’t as far removed from the natural world.  I am not exactly sure if one is better than the other, I just thought that the contrast was stark.

In our move to Puerto Rico, we are looking forward to a better balance between the two worlds.

This song helps to sum it up (snippet of lyrics below):

So I wait my turn, I’m a modern man
And the people behind me they can’t understand
Makes me feel like….
Something don’t feel right

They say we are the chosen few but we waste it
And that’s why we’re still waiting
On a number from the modern man
Maybe when you’re older you will understand why you don’t feel right
Why you can’t sleep at night no
In line for a number but you don’t understand like a modern man