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Using body rather than technology, in communicating, learning, writing, drawing, counting, trading,
swapping ... ; hand work; transport (walking, running, swimming ...); self-defense (martial arts, etc.).
More interaction with nature: grazing, hunting, fishing; taming animals; making fire; shaping stone,
wood, mud, iron ...
More memorization: learning by heart, rather than depending on data-saving technology only.
More imagination, rather than using multimedia which dulls imagination sometimes.
More socializing and face-to-face interaction. ... Etc.
Reclaiming Lost Advantages
Although the present is generally better, the past is better sometimes. The ancients' life had many
advantages over ours:
Less pollution and pollution-related health problems.
Less people and overpopulation problems.
More plant and animals, in quantity and diversity.
More space: less concrete jungles blocking light, air and view.
No pesticides, growth hormones, etc. (food was natural and organic).
More sleep (9 hours on average, as records show).
More exercise: people exercised more, naturally using their body for work, travel, defense, and
entertainment. ... Etc.
Bonding with Ancestors
Those who lived in the past are our ancestors who gave us the life we now have. They worked and
suffered to keep life going and to make the world livable for them and their successors. Historical records,
genealogy and DNA can help us trace our roots back; but even without them, we are certain there is
someone, somewhere, whose name we may not know, in every century and historical era, who passed life
to us: one of our many distant grandparents. If we happen to meet him/her, even in records, we may be
amazed how similar our looks, behavior and characters are.
They still live with us by the legacy they left us. Every action they took is still having an eternal ripple
effect, we may or may not see. They are dead now, as we will be later, joining them and becoming
members of the "dead majority," while leaving the living minority to have its share of life. Learning
history helps us accept death as part of life.
Mind-Travel
When we study history we travel to a whole different era with characteristics different from ours, giving
it its unique character that cannot exist at any other time or place, made up by such combination of unique
clothes, foods, arts, music, literature, traditions, holidays, social structure, etc. Mind travel is both useful
and pleasurable, mentally and psychologically. Traveling to a near place or time is not as powerful an
experience as that to a distant one.
Gratitude
They accepted and enjoyed a life mostly difficult and primitive, compared to ours. So we learn to accept
our life, that is better by comparison.
As we get old, years and years separate us from our past that, as we look back, looks strikingly different.
We notice how life, society, technology, science ... and ourselves have changed, from what they were in
that historical "era" we had lived early in our life. We still carry those early years with us wherever we go,
like a history book we go back to whenever the present is not as good as it was. History is part of us, as
we will be part of history