you should google them

I just read an article in National Geographic about a group of people who live in Tanzania. Scorned by their own government, looked down upon by their own people, they have a simple existence as some of the world's only remaining hunter-gatherers.

They are called the Hadza people, and their way of living is so profound in its simplicity that it got me thinking.

They have no religion. No plans, no schedules, calendars, or sense of the passing of time. They allow nothing to tie them down in any sense--there is no such thing as a marriage ceremony, they live off a patch of land until resources become scarce and then they move, and sentimentalities of nearly every kind simply do not exist. The Hadza do not have funerals, nor even burials. Women can leave their man as they please. And sleeping occurs not in the night, but whenever happens to be convenient.

These people seem to embody the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" in ways that I never thought were possible in the real world. A nice dream it is, yes, to picture a world with "no posessions...above us only sky...." It'd be great to see "all the people living for today...nothing to kill or die for," but in reality? Seems kind of...imagined.

But though they may be few in number, there are people out there who live this beautifully frightening proposal as easily as they breathe, every single day.

In the "modern" world, most of us are so wrapped up in our day to day concerns, and all of our problems seem so big. But it is inspiring, to me, to know that there are so many different and varied ways to go about living one life. One single life may not feel like much in the scheme of things, but if we were to realize how many options we have for that set of 80 or so years, one life starts to take shape as what it really is--rich, incredible, and brimming with innumerable possibilities.