Only If We Understand, Can We Care.

I Had Been Told From School Onwards That The Best Definition Of A Human Being Was Man The Tool-maker - Yet I Had Just Watched A Chimp Tool-maker In Action. I Remember That Day As Vividly As If It Was Yesterday.

I Didn't Want To Become A Professor Or Get Tenure Or Teach Or Anything. All I Wanted To Do Was Get A Degree Because Louis Leakey Said I Needed One, Which Was Right, And Once I Succeeded I Could Get Back To The Field.

I Want To Change Awareness.

Words Can Enhance Experience, But They Can Also Take So Much Away. We See An Insect And At Once We Abstract Certain Characteristics And Classify It - A Fly. And In That Very Cognitive Exercise, Part Of The Wonder Is Gone. Once We Have Labeled The Things Around Us We Do Not Bother To Look At Them So Carefully. Words Are Part Of Our Rational Selves, And To Abandon Them For A While Is To Give Freer Reign To Our Intuitive Selves.

So Long As We Continued To Attach More Importance To Our Own Narrow Group Membership Than To The 'global Village' We Would Propagate Prejudice And Ignorance. There Was Absolutely No Harm In Being Part Of A Small Group - Indeed, With Our Hunter-gatherer Band Mentality It Gave Comfort, Provided Us With An Inner Circle Of Friends Who Could Be Utterly Trusted, Who Were Absolutely Reliable. It Helped Give Us Peace Of Mind. The Danger Came Only From Drawing That Sharp Line, Digging That Ditch, Laying That Minefield, Between Our Own Group And Any Other Group That Thought Differently.