Life in the Desert

 

 

 

Today, when people are given the opportunity to enjoy the latest scientific inventions and technological advances, it is difficult to imagine that someone cannot use the fruits of civilization. The society has developed so much that its physiological and security needs are satisfied, which means that people are engaged in higher stages of their development such as spirituality, creativity, and intelligence. Although on the one side of the globe people are using computerized mechanisms and inventions, there are still those who eat roots and leaves and drink rain water on other continents. This paper aims to prove that for humans life in the desert would be terrifying and useless as personal growth cannot be fulfilled without satisfied basic needs.

Some people have always lived in deserts and other territories with severe conditions but it has not prevented them from inventing language, morals, and traditions. The society within desert territories is not likely to reach contemporary level of the world’s development. However, due to the need to communicate, people create some primitive relationships and governing models. There are many severe climates, though people manage to survive there. It is worth comparing life in the desert to life in the North Pole. For example, life beyond the Polar circle has made people adaptive to living in low temperatures with limited amount of food, medicines, and drinking water. Today, these people create communities and stems as they did in archaic times. They are satisfied with their lives as they do not imagine that life may be more comfortable, easier, and more pleasant. They ride the deer and dogs, eat fish, and go to shamans in case they are sick or despaired. People, who live in the deserts also create primitive groups with simple social relations, make some tools for work, and follow specific cults. People from deserts and the North Pole prove that it is possible to survive in both snow and sand deserts, however, satisfaction of basic needs will be the sense of living for those who have never written poems and never created complicated philosophical systems. Therefore, even though people will survive among snow and sand deserts, it is necessary to realize whether we want mankind to be primitively developed individuals or spiritual, complicated, and wise beings. Human organism can adapt to living in the deserts as well as drinking and eating peculiarities of these areas. If people could survive in severe conditions, they would not even try to find the answers to humans’ fundamental issues such as the sense of life and values.

As people’s knowledge is based on previous experiences, people from the deserts may not know anything concerning the outer world. It means that they may not be able to compare their business to business of others. People living in the desert see nothing but sand, water, food, sky, and the sun. They may do their best to make their lives as comfortable within desert conditions as possible, but isolation will not be beneficial for them. Evolving means of getting new information and experiences will be difficult if every member of the community possesses the same information and skills.

It is worth paying attention to human brain that needs specific conditions for development. Average contemporary individual who lives in big city and uses technological advances has to handle the gigabytes of information. In the 21^st century, daily quantity of information consumed by contemporary individual is equal to annual quality of information consumed by average individual two centuries ago. Therefore, human brain allows executing complicated functions that provide technological and scientific progress. In the desert, the quantity of information that can potentially be consumed by desert habitants is limited. It means that human brain will regress rather than evolve due to the lack of information to be processed. Human brain cannot exist without any information of stimuli, therefore, it will proceed unreal information and make people believe that such information is true. Thus, people are likely to experience hallucinations and visions that prevent them from objective perception of reality.

People who have experienced living in contemporary communities will not become true followers of different ancient cults or religious groups. Contemporary individuals do not have a desire to explore, consider, change, and implement something new in the desert or other places, where human activity is not forbidden.

Fortunately, contemporary societies are extremely diverse and complicated that makes living in them interesting and challenging. Both positive and negative effects of cultural diversity, such as global stratification, make people differ from each other. As a result, a variety of living conditions, lifestyles, activities, and values is available. People are free to be different, though consequences of inequality frequently become rather negative than positive. In the desert, people are mainly equal due to limited access to goods and activities. Desert conditions do not allow being different from the rest, which affects human individuality and consequently, freedom. Essentially, nobody and nothing is able to rid a person of inner freedom, but limited activity and space will create the limits of mind and thinking.