The Hunter's attitude

Kishore (January 2002)

When I was reading a book by John Gray related to topic: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, he introduced a nice concept called 'we all carry the hunter's attitude deep within us'. Before all civilization evolved the human race was mainly living on hunting. His daily routine is like the following

All men folk went hunting into jungles and returned in the evening
All women stayed at home tending to children, talking a lot with others and cooking
During night all men gathered around the fire and discussed all things about day's hunting.

In this book John Gray used this concept to explain attitude differences between men and women. I liked this concept and I also believe we all carry some attitude from this ancient system. This shapes our behavior to some extent

1. Men Work and Women stay at home

In the age of hunter, men only used to go to work of 'hunting'. The nature of work was dangerous and hunting was only for men. Women stay at home. May be some of us still carry this attitude when we say only men should work. In this age, though work is not that dangerous always, but still some disciplines are dangerous.

2. Frustration of men at work

Some days men come back from work with lot of frustration. This typically happens because the work day was not satisfactory. When one goes to work one looks forward to achievements at work. A day that has gone by without any interesting milestone achieved can be frustrating. This can equated to a hunter coming back from hunting without hunting even a single animal. This can be very insulting to a hunter to come back empty handed. This may also mean that the family may not have enough food for next day. So in a hunters life it is very important that he hunts daily for his food.

3. Goals at work

It is very important for working people to have milestones and goals to look forward. You will have major milestones and minor milestones. One feels happy when milestones are achieved. Hunting a small animal like a rabbit can be treated as a minor milestone and hunting a major milestone can be like hunting a big tiger. In hunter's life hunting a tiger calls for major celebration. When one goes to work and look at milestones distinguish between 'tiger' milestones and 'rabbit' milestones.

4. Women folk like talk and gossiping

One can make a complaint that women want to talk a lot and enjoy gossiping. Drawing parallel from hunter's age, women who are used staying at home spent lot of time talking when they work at home. Talking enables women to exchange their emotions.

Summary:

I found thinking back on our habits in the era of hunters gives a plausible explanation to why some things are done the way they are done. Next time you wonder on a habit you wonder why it is done that way see whether you can relate the same to hunter's attitude. In relating goals to hunters attitude I was able to attach importance of having goals. Lot of times we are emotionally upset because of our failure in 'hunting'.