Tribe: On Homecoming And Belonging

Key Takeaways

• Robert Frost famously wrote that home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
• The word “tribe” is far harder to define, but a start might be the people you feel compelled to share the last of your food with. This sentiment is such a rare and precious thing in modern society and lack of it has affected us all.
• For many people - war feels better than peace and hardship can turn out to be the great belssing and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations.
• Because of the basic freedoms, tribal members tended to be exceedingly loyal.
• As societies become more affluent they tend to require more, rather than less, time and commitment by the individual, and it’s possible that many people feel that affluence and safety simply aren’t good trade for freedom.
• The accumulation of personal property allowed people to make more and more individualistic choices about their lives, and those choices unavoidaly diminshed group efforts towards a common good.
• As society modernized, people found themselves able to live independently from any communal group.
• A peson living in modern society or suburb area, go through an entire day- or entire life - mostly encountering complete strangers. They can be surrounded by others and yet fel deeply, dangerously alone.
• Although happiness is notoriously subjective and difficult to measure, metal illness is not.
• As affluence and urbanization rise in a society, rates of depression and suicide tend to go up rather than down. Rather than buffering people from clicnical depression, increased wealth in society seems to foster it.
• A wealthy person who has never had to rely on help and resources from his community is leading a privileged life that falls way outside more than a million years of human experience. Financial indepepndece can lead to isolation, and isolation can put people at greatly increased risk of depression and suicide. This might be a fair trade for generally wealthier society- but a trade it is.
• Self-determination theory holds that human beings need three basic things in order to be content : they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to fel connected to others. These values are considered “intrinsic” to human happiness and far outweigh “extrinsic” values such as beauty, money and status.(Comeptence, Autonomy, Community)
• Modern society seems to emphasize extrinsic values over intrinsic ones, and as a result mental health issues refuse to decline with growing wealth.
• As modern society reduced the role of community, it simultaneously elevated the role of authority.
• Group co-operation triggers higher level of oxytocin. It increases dopamine and other pleasurable hormones in their blood.
• Both the most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.
• Tribeslacked the advantages of the arts and science and manufacturing, anf yet they lived in a society where personal poverty was unknown and the natural rights of man were actibely promoted.
• Protesting an immoral war is just honorable as fighting a moral one.
• When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose, with a resulting improvement in mental health.
• Social bonds were reinforced during disasters, and that people overwhemingly devoted their energies toward the good of the community rather than just themselves. It allows individuals to experience immenseley reassuring connection to others.
• What would you risk dying for and for whom - is perhaps the most profound question a person can ask themseleves. The vast majority of people in modern society are able to pass their lives without ever having to answer that question, which is both an enormous blessing and a significant loss.
• Intact communities are far more likely to survive than fragmented ones.
• “The miners” code of rescue meant that each trapped miner had the knowledge that he would never be buried alive if it were humanly possible for his friends to reach him.
• We didn’t learn the lesson of the war, which is how important it is to share everything you have with human beings close to you.
• When you throw trash on the ground, you apparently don’t see yourself as truly belonging to the world that you’re walking around in. And when you fraudulently claim money from the government, you are ultimately stealing from your friends, family and neighbours - or somebody else’s friends, family and neighbours.
• Acting in a tribal way simply means being willing to make a substantive sacrifice for your community- be that your neighbourhood, your workplace, or your entire country.
• True leaderhip require powerful people to put themselves last.
• Belonging to society requires sacrifice, and that sacrifice gives back way more than it costs.
• “Suppose, now, not to give them flour, lard. Just dead inside”. It was the one thing that, poor as he was, he absolutely refused to be.

Tribe by Sebastian Junger