Why Ancient Wisdom Matters

“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”
Wade Davis

VICKY: How is it going with the book?

GRANT: I’m up to Chapter 25, but I have something else which is competing for my attention.

VICKY: What’s that?

GRANT: I’m listening to the CBC Radio Ideas Podcast of the 2009 Massey Lectures by Wade Davis.

VICKY: The guy who wrote The Serpent and the Rainbow?

GRANT: Yeah, I’ve never read that but I did see the horror movie they made about it.  But anyway, this series is amazing.  Davis is an anthropologist and great lover of the diversity of human cultures.  He has a great balance of scholarship and learning through experience.  The reason I bring this up is because it’s actually related to the Born to Run Book.

VICKY: How so?  I’m only on Chapter 7.

GRANT: Well, Davis has been talking about the San People of the Kalahari Desert.  They are considered (through DNA research) to be direct descendants of the first humans.  What is awesome is that they are runners.  Great runners.

VICKY: Aha.  Like the Rarámuri or Tarahumara from Born to Run.

GRANT: Exactly what I was thinking.  Isn’t it amazing that these humans in environments largely unchanged from what we evolved into were RUNNERS.

VICKY: Yeah, that is cool.  Running was obviously something that made us human.

GRANT: More on this to follow as we work through the book, but there is one story I really like (even though I’m a vegetarian).   I read on the jacket cover of Born to Run about how the Tarahumara would chase a deer until they captured it.  Wade Davis tells a similar story about the San People.  They would chase antelope.  They would run after the antelope for days until eventually the animal would collapse from exhaustion.  Then they’d eat it.

VICKY: Wow. It’s surprising to find out just how great humans are at running.

GRANT: It’s what made us who we are.