Simple Living in Coke Bottle Culture

Our son James was watching this video over and over and over the other morning. We were struck by it for very different reasons. It eventually came out that he liked it because he got to see people "walking around with bare bums." Ha ha. I liked The Gods Must Be Crazy for that reason too when I was a boy (like what boy didn't)?

But I was drawn to video for an entirely different reason (and likely the one the screenwriter was trying to highlight), and that was how beautiful and 'un-polluted' their way of life is. Sure, it's fiction, but the metaphor of the coke bottle causing the small community so much trouble really rings true for me right now. And it seems just as applicable today as it was in the 1980's when the movie came out.

"A thing they had never needed before became a necessity."  

I must admit: I have been reluctant to write this and other posts because I don't want to relate everything we see and read to our daughter Gabrielle. But the people in this movie clip and the juxtaposition of the coke bottle really did remind me of what she's teaching us.  

While we can't escape coke bottle culture (that's just unrealistic), I think it's important to remember where we came from and who we really are as a species. Often all the coke bottles we have and want in our lives muddy our perception as to what really matters. 

But I'm convinced that we're most happy when we know there are people in our lives who would want to sleep beside us around the fire at the end of the day.