In this post I'll discuss and bring together many differing aspects of science and philosophy that all relate to how we perceive the world around us. These are the thoughts of an amateur anthropologist, psychologist, and observer of myself.
What occurred to me during this conversation with my new made friends was that a person living in the Savanna will have very different survival techniques than I learned being raised in a house on the West Coast of the USofA.
When I go to the zoo I see lion and tigers and snakes and bears and look on in awe at these creatures that have the potential in an up close encounter to kill or seriously hurt me. I have a disconnected "safe" observer perspective because the zoo environment is set up this way.
If I go on a safari in a Land Rover I get to be up close with the animals, but there still is the protective barrier of the vehicle creating an safety net between myself and the animals around me. BUT when I go to a Kenyan village there is no safety net. I am sitting around a fire with the lions, elephants, rhinos, and cheetahs lurking just beyond the firelight.
The mental change that comes with leaving my safety net is vast. A modern example is the Grizzly Man. Another example is the pair that raised a lion, released it, and came back a year later. Here we see examples of "playing with fire"; these people have crossed outside the safety net that separates us from the wild and became part of it.
In these times when we step outside of what we consider to be safe and "reasonable" we find a deeper connection with our world. I have found this to be true in my experience of surfing. Many times I have been in the water where it is many time more powerful than I am, my chances of drowning are raised exponentially. But the connection with this power is sublime.
Being in an environment where the risks are higher raises our awareness due to the release of adrenaline, we see clearer and react faster. As we practice more we learn how to better react and can take what an inexperienced person might consider greater risks. This is because our base-line has changed levels.
The environment can be anything, from the physical, to mental. Although any practice and thing learned will eventually break these boundaries because we are a single entity, not a conglomeration of physical body and mental or spiritual capacities. Here is where our awareness changes and becomes whole; when we see that the western view of mind, body, and spirit is really a useful perspective but incomplete by itself. When combined with the eastern view of yin yang we begin to see our quantitative view cohere into a full expression of environment.
