I grew up around fire and knives, being a country boy and all. They were part of my young life. Now my son is 11 and has been in cub scouts and now boy scouts. I've never pushed fire and knives on him. Just the opposite. I tend to be a conservation father and preach safety and such.
We go camping a lot and I get the chance to observe about 60 kids or more at these campouts. They come from all backgrounds, cultures, races, religions. I figure they are a pretty good cross section of young males. Their interest and tastes differ but the one thing most have in common is they gravitate towards fire and knives. Some boys will come to the campouts with a pocketful of knives. They become depressed when there is a fire watch due to dry weather and a fire can't be built.
Why is that? Being an amateur student of paleoanthropology, I've read much about homonids/humans in the 200K bce to 5K bce range. The discovered campsites of the early ones all have one thing in common. Evidence of fire and stone tools - as in sharp stone tools.
Then my epiphany - male humans have an inherent fascination with fire and knives for a reason. For hundreds of thousands of years, they have been born and raised around a campfire watching their fathers make sharp stone tools. Over time, the average young male became born with this fascination. Call it instinctive. It didn't happen overnight, but it is engrained still today in their psyche, from birth.
The age of fire and knives is not over. Maybe some day we will advance to the point that fire and knives will fade from memory, and be replaced by something else. But not anytime soon I suppose.
We go camping a lot and I get the chance to observe about 60 kids or more at these campouts. They come from all backgrounds, cultures, races, religions. I figure they are a pretty good cross section of young males. Their interest and tastes differ but the one thing most have in common is they gravitate towards fire and knives. Some boys will come to the campouts with a pocketful of knives. They become depressed when there is a fire watch due to dry weather and a fire can't be built.
Why is that? Being an amateur student of paleoanthropology, I've read much about homonids/humans in the 200K bce to 5K bce range. The discovered campsites of the early ones all have one thing in common. Evidence of fire and stone tools - as in sharp stone tools.
Then my epiphany - male humans have an inherent fascination with fire and knives for a reason. For hundreds of thousands of years, they have been born and raised around a campfire watching their fathers make sharp stone tools. Over time, the average young male became born with this fascination. Call it instinctive. It didn't happen overnight, but it is engrained still today in their psyche, from birth.
The age of fire and knives is not over. Maybe some day we will advance to the point that fire and knives will fade from memory, and be replaced by something else. But not anytime soon I suppose.
