The word civilisation comes from the word for city. But is city life more civilised? People in the city go to the coutnryside to de-stress on holiday. But people living in the countryside flock to the cities looking for work and excitement. Are the cities more civilised?
Problems
Cities are polluted. Crowded. We go to remote places to escape. How long can we stay in remote places without the help of civilisation?
You can see from the poor quality of this blown up photo that it was taken from the house, quite some distance away. I wasn't sure this garden fox was friendly. He was watching me. I was watching him.
1 HIKES
I go on hikes. Holidays in the coutnry or climbing require weeks of preparation and shopping trips to camping supply shops. Waterproof clothes. Sleeping bags. Tents. Borrowing items and recelining loaned items. Protective glasses. Water bottles. GPS. Repairs to watches.
Hikes uphill or downhill are great for the first half hour. Sometimes as long as four hours.
As soon as you get to a mountaintop, you sit down.
In Madeira, after hiking down to the waterfall, several people caught the minibus back uphill.
I love the scenery. But could I stay there indefinitely, like the tramp who wrote, 'What is life if, full of care, you have no time to stand and stare?'
Couple seated on the city's bench, admiring the view of the countryside. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
You can stand and stare for an hour or two. Then you get hungry and thirsty.
1b FOOD
Eat from nature. Fine in summer if you have fruit trees nearby. My garden has one good apple tree. But half the apples contain worms. The other one has tasteless woody apples. Maybe that's because it's too early in the year. You have to spend a lot of time picking and cooking. If you just want a good, eating apple, pop down to the supermarket.
Garden food, a nice extra. But you'd have a hard time trying to live on it exclusively all year.
Here's aloe vera, grown on a balcony in Singapore. Tastes terrible. No flavour. Slimy. A packaged aloe vera drink from the supermarket was very pleasant.
In Singapore we are surrounded by coconut trees - which somebody has planted in neat rows. I never climb trees to get coconuts. When was the last time you climbed a tree to get a coconut? Or tried to open one without a manufactured knife?
At a condo in Singapore, nimble lads were hired to cull the coconuts (before the coconuts fell on the heads of sunbathers or gardeners and killed somebody). The lads had either ladders or climbing shoes and ropes, large bags to collect the coconuts. They had shop-bought machetes to cut off leaves which got in the way, or were old and likely to fall. The machetes also cut the tops off coconuts if you wanted to eat or drink.
1c TOILETS
I am very glad to get back to civilization. Toilets. Water for washing hands. After four days hiking rhough mountains with no toilets, even a squat toilet is a luxury. A door to close for privacy. A bin where you can chuck tissues. If you are lucky, a ledge where you can keep your bag off the dirty ground.
Insects kept away. Insect repellent you can buy. Sandwiches to buy.
After a hiking trek, even a marathon, people come back with broken toe-nails, bruises, insect bites.
2 WWII
In WWII people on the run from the Nazis hid out in the woods in Belarus. They survived by raiding nearby villages for vital stuff such as food and medicines. When the war ended, they did not choose to stay in the woods making their own shoes and clothes and huts. They went straight back to civilisation, cities.
3 EQUIPMENT For Climbing
My friends and family go on hikes and treks. They depend on items brought from civilzation. Ropes. Sleeping bags. GPS. Bottled water. Maps. Signposts. Rescue helicopters.
4 WORK PAYS
All my millionaire friends and acquaintances are incredibly hard-working. They get up at 5 am to run and get fit before work, catch planes (or climb mountains). They work evenings and weekends and national holidays. Mostly they do working breakfasts, working lunches, and two meetings in an evening. (One woman I know with two businesses declines evening parties because she goes to bed at nine p.m.)
Some have two businesses, at least two. Actually three overlappy. One business is fading out, about to be sold off to a loyal employee. The second main successful one is supporting the other two. The third is up and coming.
Richard Branson came to open an exhibition of playing cards. A whole queue (Americans say line-up) of people wanted to speak to him. He stayed for the dinner afterwards. I hoped to speak to him after dinner. But before dessert he had left to go to another meeting.
He owns an island. He doesn't camp. He builds. He doesn't just buy a car, or drive car, or drive a train, or own a plane. He owns a train line and an airline.
5 COMMUNICATION
They learn foreign languages. They don't insist on talking their own language. They talk your language.
They don't consider a language is hard to learn or easy to learn. They just do it.
6 SCOUTS?
Scouts are great. Guides are great. (Girl guides, hiking guides and tourist guides.) Summer camps are great.
Kids who get lost sometimes survive for days. A Japanese kid survived when he found a hut with eqipment. I'm pretty sure he was glad to be found, just as his parents were glad to find him.
7 CRUSOE
Admittedly, a small and exceptional number, one or two, maybe a hundred, famous people got stranded on desert islands or discovered them and decided to stay there. The Mutiny. The painter Rousseau.
They were the exceptions. Most people on islands want subsidies, tourists, or citizenship elsewhere. Survival guides tell you how to signal for help to planes, ships, search parties.
7 OUT OF WORK?
When you shut down a major industry, the mines, the car factory, there's a great outcry because 'people will be out of work'. So the workers cannot make their own shoes and clothes, grown their own food, cook their own food, build their own houses.
8 TEETH TELL TALES
I look at pictures of primitive people. They have missing teeth. In the heyday of Great Britain, nobody had missing teeth. The elderly received crowns, bridges and dentures on the National Health service.
9 LIFE EXPECTANCY
Yes, I know that some islands have remote groups who live to 100. But most don't. What is the life expectancy of a person living Africa or South America outside the big cities? What about all the children dying before the age of 5 because they don't have clean water?
We did not reach our wonderful civilsation overnight. The three Brontes girls died around the age of 30 (apart from the sisters who died earlier). it took a long time to get where we are now.
With modern transport and the spread of information, the New World can overtake the old world. Britain has water shortages because our old Victorian pipes are leaking. It costs time and money to replace them. New countries can just start with new.
10 GOVERNMENTS
A copany CEO is called in to turn around the finances and organization of a business within a year or two. Governments are expected to have five year plans and show progress before they are out.
In Singapore, from the kampongs (villages) to the skyscrapers. I left Singapore for a brief trip to Greece. Our guide told us the reasons for their lack of insfracstructure (roads from the capital, Athens, to Thessalonia, second city int ht north, were because of occupation by the Turks. That ended in 1910. I though of Singapore, where so much has been accomplished. You need a blalance bewetwen preserving the old ruins, and building the new buildings. The best I have sen are place where a msueum and excavation are left under the skyscraper overhead.
11 PRESERVED Buildings and and new
Guildhall
For example, The Guildhall in London has Roman remains behind glass under the ground floor, with the Guildhall above, plus a mdoern art gallery.
Yorvik
Yorvik in York has preserved the findings in a museum, with the development whose foundations discoverd the antiques, contunued above.
By all means preserve the old. But don't neglect the new.
12 TRAVELLERS
I met a gypsy whose relative used to visit formers and look after their beehiaves, colecting the honey twice a year. Very worthwhile.
Others seem to have no way of making a living. If the 'travellers' can survive without having schools, permanent jobs and paying taxes, why do they have to set up camp in the middle of cities?
13 CARAVANS
Some travellers in my area have been given housing. Maybe they could be given housing with large parkling spaces, keep their caravans, and travel in the summer, like the rest of us, to places where campsites are set up in secluded areas with views.
The people in the city don't like travellers' carvans being parked. The city people complain about theft and litter.
The country people don't like caravan parks where city people invade the scenery.
The Tiny House movement seems a great idea. But the tiny houses need to hook up to electric supplies and waste disposal.
Without income you don't need to pay income tax. Without a fixed address, you don't need to pay
council tax. On the other hand, without a fixed address, you can't claim benefits.
14 RESPONSIBILITY & WORK
Some say that with high taxes, as high as 50%, you are already working the first half of the week for the government (the community) or the first half of the year for them.
To get over the problem of school leavers without experience, and companies not willing to empoly inexperienced staff, we have work experience.
To get over the problem of the young having the latest knowledge, whilst the old are out of date, most industries, including opticians and medical staff, have training days, compusory, every year.
We used to have national service for everyone in the UK. National service still exists in Singapore and Israel.
With robots taking away jobs, maybe we should have a working week where one day a week is for community service.
Students have to pay back loans. Maybe immigrants could be sent to college for language tuition and training in jobs for which there is a market, and have to pay back the loans.
JFK famously said, 'Ask what you can do for your country'. Immigrants should be asked what they can do for the country.
15 ANIMALS
In the city we have romantic views of teddy bears, magnificent lions and adorable baby animals.
Those who live with and train wild animals often get killed. The villagers whose family members and friends are killed by crocodiles don't take kindly to the wild crocodiles nor to the ones on conservation and breeidng areas where the animals and reptiles escape.
Our animals are tamed dogs and cats and in the west we don't eat pets, especially not in the USA and UK. No to guinea pigs, eaten in South America, no to dogs eaten in China, no to horses, eaten in France, no to snails eaten in France, no to frogs legs eaten in France, and only chocolate covered insects at Chrstmas eaten as a novelty, whilst insects are eaten in Africa.
As for killing animals, uproar about a dentist killing a lion. Heads of animals which used to hang on the wall are upsetting Hindus and other animal lovers. We have the Chinese eating anything except the table, and nutritionists saying we could solve the food crisis by eating insects.
Others say modern medicine has increased the number of humans and the answer is contraception and population control.
Animal lovers are divided. The rottweiler lovers and lovers of pack animals against the owners of poodles. The owners of dangerous snakes against their next door neighbours.
16 INSECTS
The haters of spiders are against the haters of flies.
Spider photo courtesy of Trevor Sharot photography.
Mosquitos have apparently kept loggers and citiy folk out of the jungles. In cities such as Singapore fogging keeps down the mosquitos. Laboratories are trying to breed mosqitos which are harmless to breed with the others. So the dear little mosquitos can enjoy sucking our blood without giving us malaria.
My Japanese friend was bitten by a mosquito and got dengue fever. She was in a city with a hospital and recovered.
That reminds me. I must add fly spray and insect repellent to my packing list.
17 HEALTH & SAFETY
I am all for healthy and safety and this includes mental health. Every child and adult should have a check-up at their doctor or a nurse on their well-being. Everything should be covered, aches and pains, lumps, scars, falling hair, sleep, drink drugs, sex, money, jobs, relationships.
Anybody going through a divorce, bereavement, job loss, should have an automatic check. Anybody with three danger signs, such as loss of job, breakdown of marriage, loss of home, posssession of weapons, making threats to kill others or themselves, should have an urgent review.
Whatever cannot be done by paid workers should be done by volunteers. We have a volunteer police auxiliary force. We need think tanks to look at problems and appoint volunteers. I don't think we can clean leaves on train lines. But we could build fences around train livnes, install traffic lights instead of zebra crossings
SUMMARY - WHAT DO WE NEED?
Civilization is what?
1 Water and food.
2 Clothes.
3 Buildings to proect you from weather and animals.
4 Animals and insects kept away.
5 Big guard dogs and pets and packs of animals kept away from tiny babies, childen, small people, visitors, the frail elderly.
6 Roads and rail connecting people and places.
7 Bridges and walkways and balconies closed to prevent suicides and falling objects.
8 Jobs.
9 Money for those who are briefly sick.
10 Energy sources which are replenished. (Such as wind and water, your shoes as you walk.)
11 Education and Accessible information. (Wikipedia.)
What do you think? Please reply here.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.
