Don’s
Diary (I’m a Caveman !)
After
a recent Don’s Diary submission, our Editor said that if he interviewed me he
would ask what I thought was the meaning and purpose of life. Here it is.
I
think that I have strong caveman instincts and these underlie my motivations
and actions: I think at heart I am a caveman.
When the cavemen and cavewoman stand nude, simply adorned in ochre they
will see that they are built the same: they all have the same body functions
and similar motivations and hunger. As
we say, we are all sprung from the same stock, sharers of the same hopes.
Cavemen
like me place the highest priority on having a mate who he can love and
protect, who can bear, nurture and develop his successors because it is the
succession of the race, particularly the succession of his family that is of
principal importance to him. His mate
should be able to do everything that he can do because he could be injured in
the hunt or as a warrior and she could be widowed. But she must be more than that: she must be
absolutely trustworthy as there could be long absences from the cave, she must
be a good forager and make the cave a home.
She must share your hopes with you and be a role model for the next
generation of child bearers. The cave
does not have to be flash – just warm and comfortable. She must understand him when he is physically
exhausted while she may have had a less stressful but tedious day. She must cherish him but put children
first.
A
caveman must instinctively recognise who he can trust because if he is injured
in the hunt or wounded in battle he will need protection and assistance: the
few who can endure the heat of battle and the rigors of the hunt. He will not
want his intentions and capabilities betrayed or somebody deciding to change
sides. He will know that to enjoy
respect from others he must pull his weight in the hunt, in the security of
this family and his hunting territory, have integrity and be pleasant. He cannot be told who to trust and like as
the “progressives” in today’s society think that they can do it by
legislation. He will not accept the
thought police of politically correctness telling him how to think and
talk. He will teach his sons his
providing skills and be a masculine role model.
In
his subsistence life he will want to share the results of a successful hunt
with his close and extended family. It
will include those who neither participated in the hunt nor assisted in the
foraging; the aged and infirm will be welcomed but those who are just lazy,
greedy, have self inflicted medical conditions or take their afflictions too
seriously will only just be accepted.
This acceptance will become very thin in time and eventually you will accept
that they need to just walk out into the dark and cold. In times of famine he will give a priority to
supporting his mate, his young successors who cannot provide for themselves and
those that can breed. There is no place
for alternative lifestyles in his cave.
He
will not accept people invading his cave, stealing his firewood, using his
traps or taking over his hunting grounds any more than those today who believe
that we should not have porous European style national borders. Nor people “looking over the fence” and
deciding that they have an entitlement to strip the tree that you planted
outside your cave, that your cultivated creek flat is better that theirs that
they have neglected, and use your traps and nets because they have never made them. He must live within his subsistence means
from his success as a hunter, his mate’s foraging, team building and self
imposed austerity. He will not welcome
somebody else trying to take some of his winter provisions for his family and
giving it away. None of these things
contribute to his ambition of succession.
For
him his basic priories will be his mate, the achievers and breeders in his
family, and his young successors. His
life is all about succession and I suspect self respect.
OK, call me a dinosaur from Generation
D.
Yours fraternally,
Don Paterson
