Adaptability - Act 13 part 6 - shelter and structure

In the last 2 posts,(for the sake of a thought experiment), I broke our primary needs into the 3 areas where we end up using most of our days and the best part of our focus.

Our 3 primary needs

• Nutrition - energy and spare parts - covered in part pt4
• Sex and affection/acceptance - covered in part 5
• Shelter - we will look at today

We identified and looked at our needs for Energy, affection/acceptance (intamacy and sex), now we can look at shelter and how, together ,these needs have come to alter our physical and emotional landscapes.

Shelter means structure
Nomadic peoples used tents and grass huts or available caves. Permanent fences, mud bricks, thatched or shingle roofing began to make more sense when people stayed for a prolonged harvesting season. As we began to sow seeds, and clear land for domesticated plants and animals, we naturally felt “entitled” to the future benefits we had sacrificed (worked) for.

As the amount of energy invested in our physical tools and structures increased, the need for access to liquid markets, as well as justice systems also expanded. The further we moved from direct access to food chains, the greater our need for synthetic,(man made) control structures became. The further we moved from what nature was doing on its own, the more we needed to focus on what other humans were doing.

The harder we "worked" to alter what would otherwise of happened, (flow of organic resources through natural or "un-processed" cycles). The more we felt "entitled" to the gains we had brought about.

Consider this flow of events:
Up and down the length of the river people feed on fish
We notice fish stranded in a rock pool, or by reeds.
We begin placing rocks to trap them.
We start weaving reeds and placing traps.
We sell the traps and we train weavers.
Downstream less fish are getting through
Upstream wealth is created via skill and knowledge

Now consider
Have the total number of fish increased?
Have they in fact decreased as fewer are reaching the breeding areas downstream?
The fish removed are no longer feeding nitrogen to the plants and animals downstream
We have harvested more nitrogen upstream but removed it from downstream
How far reaching are the consequences, can we know, do we care?
Is this wealth creation or or redistribution?
Is there an overall increase or reduction in the total abundance and resiliance of the system?
Which people are growing in power and influence, those upstream or downstream?
What about 10,000 generations from now?

In-structions
Much of our technology is focused on making things that do not perish when wet, or fall over in the wind. We want to save the work of having to make our fish traps, homes and our fences over and over.

The techniques that work best are passed on as facts, formula and methods. Skills and knowledge determine what we harvest, how much success we have and where we get to live. Upstream or downstream.

Valuable
The natural resources that were self sustaining abundant and diverse, begin to be reduced and refined down to which are most easily re-produced, processed, shipped, stored and traded. The skills and knowledge, most rewarded also aligned with the requirements of these new systems.

The further we moved from direct access to food chains and building materials, the greater our need to interact with these new synthetic control structures became.

The further we moved from what nature was doing on its own, the more we needed to focus on what other humans were doing. As our needs changed, so did the values we placed on each other and on ourselves.

Specialised or ill-adapted?
Our species evolved, specifically our nervous systems evolved so that not only was our species the most adaptable. Within that species, each of us was uniquely specialised, sensitised, ready to be skilled in the most abundant, resource rich and bio-diverse atmosphere in the known cosmos.

Security Issues
Yet, within this decentralised regenerative possibility we were becoming centralised, knowledge rich but increasingly poor in skills and movement. Even though we had created all these wonderful structures, tamed our wild and dangerous environment, we had never felt more alone and without shelter. Had we missed something vital?

This was perhaps a “dark” post.
Its not meant to be, I have no personal *opinions about what should or should not be. I am interested in how and why we do what we do, and what other options may emerge from growing such an understanding.

*this is my daily practice, the practice of fully feeling alive, yet not having to automatically respond emotionally to what other people do or say. Its not actions that upset me, its my stories about them.

So in these writings, I try to leave out moral judgements and simply view what was, what is and what might be.
of course, It is a work in progress...

=8-P

Wisdom as Action series
Act 1 - Do you remember?
Act 2 - What is Love?
Act 3 - Feeling Swell
Act 4 - Bound to be Free
Act 5 - Trust Issues
Act 6 - Knowledge
Act 7 - All you Desire
Act 8 - Virtue Reality
Act 9 - @tension
Act 10 - Rote learning vs Understanding
Act 11- Morality Paradox
Act 12- Body Language
Act 13 - Adaptability pt1 - survival
Adaptability pt2- attunement
Adaptability pt3 - focus
Adaptability pt4 - nutrition
Adaptability pt5- sex and intimacy
Adaptability pt6 - shelter