SECTION SUMMARY

The Inner circle: The fire circle was the emblematic center of social life for our Paleolithic ancestors. The clan was typically made up of twenty-five to fifty members who engaged with neighboring groups for the resultant exchange of information about food, water, shelter, and danger. The cultural life and cosmology of the people was shared as participation was encouraged and rewarded within this social framework. Today, we are in jeopardy of depriving ourselves of the genuine nourishment of our social needs, through the very ease and extent of the virtual network. When we leave the dinner table (or—the horror!—not even sit down together to eat at all) to take that phone call, or check email, or invest hours in a video game or mindless TV, we are short-changing our closest and most important societal ties and emotionally starving ourselves in the bargain. Does our mental effort, our daily use of time, reflect the best of our experiences in life? Or are we giving it away to wider acquaintances and relative strangers? It’s time to recalibrate our lives toward genuine connection.

Filling the Social Wellbeing: For our ancient ancestors, ritual was the key to social cohesion. Today, the ritual of telling family stories and recollecting memories fills our emotional storehouse with affection, meaning, and continuity that gets us through hard times and strained relationships. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors (and those of traditional societies today) also lived in a culture of immediacy, meaning life was lived around what could be found and created in the moment. What if we thought like a hunter-gatherer and saw every day as a chance to remake our relationship in the present moment? What if we reintroduced spontaneity back into our lives? What would you do with your leisure time? Maybe get away for the weekend with your partner, play with the kids on the lawn, or be part of the audience energy and go to a game, a concert, or a play? Don’t allow the “hassle factor” to prevent you from making new memories. And invoke the ancestral heritage of warmth, relaxation, and the mystery of fire with a fireplace, a fire pit, a campfire, even candles. You’ll feel better for it!