When I lived in Gulick Heights in Panama the children in the neighbor used to form into groups, almost like tribes to be honest. The ‘tribes’ were made up mostly of boys of the same age, and we would have little wars with some of the other “tribes” who lived in the area. I remember that we would go into the jungle and find ‘weapons’….well they were really clubs. I had a really good club made of hardwood and had a large knot at the top and slimmed down the closer you got to the bottom. It was funny the change that would come over me when I would pick that club up, it was like I changed into something primitive almost primal, I wanted to charge something, to fight to express aggression and did not feel any kind of fear. More to the point; I think I felt like a cave man (well perhaps) who was ready to go to war or to hunt, both of which could be dangerous which made me hyper alert to danger, real or imagined.
We would go to war with other groups and fight, but no one ever really got hurt we weren’t that far gone. One day we were fighting a group when they broke away and ran into some saw grass. Saw grass is a tall green plant with sharp sides to it which could cut your bare skin if you were not careful. Well they ran in the grass and hunkered down and stayed there. So the kids in my group lined up, there was 8 of us I think, got our clubs and someone yelled, “ready aim throw” and we threw our clubs into the saw grass. We got some hits, there were some tears but in the end we all went down to swimming pool and played together. I think what keep us in control was the fact that grownups were simply around, sort of a mitigating influence on us…..the fear of punishment also helped on a more conscious level……I have often wondered what would have happened if say no adults were around for some reason, how far would we go. Morality is not highly developed in young children so without guidance it could have gotten ugly.
I remember year’s later reading the book the “lord of the flies” which is about a group of children…. from almost toddlers to teenagers and the effect it had on them to be left on their own without adult supervision. . It is not a book to read for pleasure but more for insight into our more primitive impulses that our being part of society keeps under checks most of the time. The cartoon TV show “recess” sort of deals with this in a humorous manner, you have the grade school kids who have a king of the play ground more or less benign, and then the pre-schools kids who can come across a little more malign, very primitive and in one episode a little scary. Of course this is TV for children and does not go as far as it could go if it were a cartoon for adults.
Even as an adult, an old adult (56) I still get that primitive wanting to go to war and hit someone over the head feeling…. it is like just holding onto a sword or spear propels me back thousands of years to some primordial ancestor who had to be that way just to survive. The problem today is that kind of thing is not needed anymore but the propensity is still there.
Knowing that about myself I can understand why we have so much war today; there is a deep part of us that longs for it, irrational yes, harmful to humanity yes, self destructive yes……but none the less there. I wonder if we will ever be able to channel that primitive force within into something constructive and healing instead of destructive and wounding.
I think one reason I still love heavy metal music even at my time of live is that the primitive beat still allows me to somehow channel that feeling into movement, allows it to come to the surface so that I can express it. The more primitive the music the more I seem to like it, the deeper the base guitar and the harder the drums beat the more I can fly with the music and go into a trance sort of. I don’t loose touch with reality or anything, but music for me has a lot of power and I am sure that I am not unique in that. I also love other types of music and each is used to get me in touch with other areas of my live. Some allow me to feel the softer more tender sides of who I am and I find that just as helpful as heavy metal. Perhaps this shows that I am not that integrated in my inner life and need music to help me get in touch with that; in other words I need help. I am more comfortable with the more aggressive types of emotions so they are more readily available to me but the tender side of me is more hidden, at least on the level were I can feel it; when I do it is very healing for me. People do not experience me as angry. I think the reason for this is that I am aware of my tendency to get angry,, so I work on it and that self awareness allows me to use it in a constructive manner and if I fail to apologies if I said or did anything stupid. People are more aware of my tender side than I am, being unaware of it much of the time, it sort of leaks out and other feel it around me….strange isn’t it?
Peace
mitch
We would go to war with other groups and fight, but no one ever really got hurt we weren’t that far gone. One day we were fighting a group when they broke away and ran into some saw grass. Saw grass is a tall green plant with sharp sides to it which could cut your bare skin if you were not careful. Well they ran in the grass and hunkered down and stayed there. So the kids in my group lined up, there was 8 of us I think, got our clubs and someone yelled, “ready aim throw” and we threw our clubs into the saw grass. We got some hits, there were some tears but in the end we all went down to swimming pool and played together. I think what keep us in control was the fact that grownups were simply around, sort of a mitigating influence on us…..the fear of punishment also helped on a more conscious level……I have often wondered what would have happened if say no adults were around for some reason, how far would we go. Morality is not highly developed in young children so without guidance it could have gotten ugly.
I remember year’s later reading the book the “lord of the flies” which is about a group of children…. from almost toddlers to teenagers and the effect it had on them to be left on their own without adult supervision. . It is not a book to read for pleasure but more for insight into our more primitive impulses that our being part of society keeps under checks most of the time. The cartoon TV show “recess” sort of deals with this in a humorous manner, you have the grade school kids who have a king of the play ground more or less benign, and then the pre-schools kids who can come across a little more malign, very primitive and in one episode a little scary. Of course this is TV for children and does not go as far as it could go if it were a cartoon for adults.
Even as an adult, an old adult (56) I still get that primitive wanting to go to war and hit someone over the head feeling…. it is like just holding onto a sword or spear propels me back thousands of years to some primordial ancestor who had to be that way just to survive. The problem today is that kind of thing is not needed anymore but the propensity is still there.
Knowing that about myself I can understand why we have so much war today; there is a deep part of us that longs for it, irrational yes, harmful to humanity yes, self destructive yes……but none the less there. I wonder if we will ever be able to channel that primitive force within into something constructive and healing instead of destructive and wounding.
I think one reason I still love heavy metal music even at my time of live is that the primitive beat still allows me to somehow channel that feeling into movement, allows it to come to the surface so that I can express it. The more primitive the music the more I seem to like it, the deeper the base guitar and the harder the drums beat the more I can fly with the music and go into a trance sort of. I don’t loose touch with reality or anything, but music for me has a lot of power and I am sure that I am not unique in that. I also love other types of music and each is used to get me in touch with other areas of my live. Some allow me to feel the softer more tender sides of who I am and I find that just as helpful as heavy metal. Perhaps this shows that I am not that integrated in my inner life and need music to help me get in touch with that; in other words I need help. I am more comfortable with the more aggressive types of emotions so they are more readily available to me but the tender side of me is more hidden, at least on the level were I can feel it; when I do it is very healing for me. People do not experience me as angry. I think the reason for this is that I am aware of my tendency to get angry,, so I work on it and that self awareness allows me to use it in a constructive manner and if I fail to apologies if I said or did anything stupid. People are more aware of my tender side than I am, being unaware of it much of the time, it sort of leaks out and other feel it around me….strange isn’t it?
Peace
mitch