I finally got around to reading the classic 1969 book Papillon by Henri Charriere, a perhaps somewhat fabricated memoir about his escape from a French penal colony and his stay with the Guajiro Indians in Venezuela. I bookmarked a page with a quote I found myself going back to re-read over and over, and realized it’s a sentiment that sounds like it could have come from Ray Peat’s mouth, so I thought I would share it on the forum:
“Those who haven’t been exposed to the hypocrisies of a “civilized” education react to things naturally, as they happen. It is in the here and now that they are either happy or unhappy, joyful or sad, interested or indifferent. The superiority of pure Indians like these Guajiros was striking. They could outdo us in everything: when they adopted someone, everything they had belonged to him; and when anyone showed them the least attention, they were profoundly moved.”
*Disclaimer: this quote is an English translation from the original publication in French.
“Those who haven’t been exposed to the hypocrisies of a “civilized” education react to things naturally, as they happen. It is in the here and now that they are either happy or unhappy, joyful or sad, interested or indifferent. The superiority of pure Indians like these Guajiros was striking. They could outdo us in everything: when they adopted someone, everything they had belonged to him; and when anyone showed them the least attention, they were profoundly moved.”
*Disclaimer: this quote is an English translation from the original publication in French.
