A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.
Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, ‘a healed femur.’
A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking the hip to the knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering and stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.
Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is companionship, seen in a healed femur.
Human history has been shaped according to the minds of big powers. It is said sometimes that all the mess in the world is due to the doings of people. If they don’t do work at some specific time, the world would be a safe place. If the powers would go on a week off and just rest in 1914 and 1939, the world would probably be free from two world wars. The people who don’t do anything are somewhat more beneficial because they don’t cause wars. However, according to many philosophers, life is a journey from human beings to being humane. It’s about putting a soft hand on the wounds of a person, which is the best experience in the world. All the religions in the world have the same message of humanity, peace, and dignity of mankind. It may be said thus for the world that the world is neither hell nor a paradise; everyone puts in their share to make it one of them. A single doing can affect generations, so one must always be very curious when making a decision, so that disaster should not be the fate of coming generations, like situations faced in Afghanistan. The result of decisions should be the flowers blooming for the rest of life, as in Finland, so we can experience paradise in this too.
