Starting down the Path of the Warrior

What is the Warrior Spirit?

First off, let me define what I mean by warrior in this context. The word itself is derived from War, organized violence, so a warrior might be someone who knows how to fight. At its simplest, this is true, but when you take into consideration the prerequisites of knowing how to fight, it soon becomes apparent that a warrior is much more than simply a soldier.

But to me, a warrior is not just a fighter. If we go back thousands of years, to the last Ice Age, we encounter Homo Sapiens wandering the globe in tribes, led by strong young men who had the endurance to lead the way, the foresight not to lead the tribe into dangerous territory, and the physical prowess to protect the tribe if ever it was threatened. These were the hunters, the scouts, the protectors and guardians, and, when tribes met in conflict, they were the warriors.

So, in this and upcoming posts, when I say Warrior, try to envision that young man, driven by love of his tribe to risk his life to acquire food, find shelter from the elements, and stave off attackers. How can this notion of hunter-gatherer self-sufficiency possibly apply to modern day life you ask? I have decided to find out, as I have recently had a taste of what it means to live life to the hilt, pushing yourself to your limits and fulfilling your human potential. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, for the defenders of society throughout much of human history, it was only the brightest and best who became warriors, for to entrust the survival of the tribe to anyone else was to risk extinction. Nowadays, we are so specialized, domesticated, and reliant on others and society at large that most of us can't do much more than take care of ourselves, if that, much less take care of others. Wouldn't it be nice to be worthy of that honor, or at least achieve some modicum of what it might have felt like? I am going to try, and I'm going to write about what I go through, and what I think it means to be a warrior, and how best I think I can achieve it. I hope you'll find my journey inspiring, or even just interesting.

Note: While the example of a warrior I give above is a male, I firmly believe that this was simply the result of the immense burden of childrearing on females. They simply didn't have the time to learn to defend the tribe and nurture its future. There are some good things about modern conveniences, including providing men and women the time to both nurture others and to develop themselves. Specializing is the enemy, so it benefits men to get involved with childrearing, and women with the modern-day equivelant of hunting and defending the tribe. That said, I recently saw a sculpture of a very adventurous, powerful looking Sacajewea, who had her baby on her back, so I think women have it in them to do both anyway.