Ishmael 10-13

        The end of this book brings everything full circle, all things getting more and more interesting even though Ishmael dies. Again, so many parts stand out to me, especially as an anthropology major. In these last few chapters we learn about culture and where leaver and taker cultures split off. "Leaver peoples are always conscious of having a tradition that goes back to very ancient times. We have no such consciousness. For the most part, we're a very 'new' people. Every generation is somehow new, more thoroughly cut off from the past than the one that came before."
         Due to the ancient times reaching back so far there is some evolution in the culture that we do not have as a society. When I went to Guatemala and lived among the descendants of Maya I was baffled because they seemed to have everything figured out about how to live because they didn't just take from the Earth. "The Takers accumulate knowledge about what works well for things. The Leavers accumulate knowledge about what works well for people." This is so true.
         A lot of times I want to give everything up in our society but then I still have this irrational fear about living in the "wild." It is because Mother Culture tells us that the Leaver lifestyle is like a dream or nightmare, "a man is scrabbling along a ridge at twilight.. The man is short, thin, dark, and naked. He's running in a half crouch, looking for tracks. He's hunting, and he's desperate. Night is falling and he's got nothing to eat...[he is on a treadmill] because tomorrow at twilight he'll be there running still-or running again..." The book goes on explaining how frightful this life seems to us but in reality it is such a free life to live.
This is very interesting.