RE: if I lost this account, would you care?
You're absolutely right: this 5 or 10 minute talk on a years old documentary is the only thing I know / remeber about this tribe. And it is all I'm repeating here. I would likely not even survive a week there :-)
It's just their mindset, how I imagine that to be based on ten minutes of listening, what I try to communicate here and that I compare to the rat-race we have turned our lives into, again as I see it, and grossly generalizing to make a point. We equate "more" and "faster" with "better" and "higher" and all the while we measure our position on a made-up social ladder by counting what we have. If that's not a prison, I don't know what is.
Meno of course gives a beginning of an answer; if you leave out the measuring, the things he says that sound so obvious, but apparently aren't, suddenly become obvious. At least, in my mind's eye. ;-)
@zyx066 I feel that we have it within our grasp to create a heaven here on earth, but we choose not to do so. If every person took it upon themselves to create a heaven surrounding themselves - as in, inner peace etc. - then we create it collectively. One could imagine that this is the Buddhist philosophy. I personally enjoy a strong sense of inner peace AND happiness. I try to project this in my day-to-day dealings. Sometimes I run out of energy because of the small stuff. We all have a drive to achieve - whatever our nominated goal is - and after that, in life, we are free to enjoy the spoils of that effort. If we didn't strive towards anything, what would our life consist of? What would it be about? Make achievable goals. Get there. Congratulate yourself, move on to the next goal. We can also help others to achieve their goal. Life is a journey. We are writing the story of us...