http://www.futureprimitive.org/mp3/Wolff071002.mp3 is a really cool interview with Robert Wolff where he reflects on his life and covers a wide range of issues about aboriginal and indigenous life compared to what we have now lost [not least of which this ability to 'drectly know' what according to modern school textbooks cannot be known] but more stimulating and interesting than that makes it sound
A great guy with some lifetime of experiences who grew up in Sumatra and now is over 85. His website is at
http://www.wildwolff.com/ 
Here is a short clip about himself:
I was born in Suriname, a country in South America, between French Guyana, or Cayenne on the east, and Guyana on the west, which, in turn, borders on Venezuela. I was little more than a year old when my parents (my father was a doctor) moved to Indonesia. But with my wife and one child I came back to live in Suriname after I had finished a few years' study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Our second son was born there. My third son was born in Illinois, where we lived for a year. Then we moved to Duluth, Minnesota -- cold and beautiful -- for four years. My fourth son was born in California, when I had an appointment at the University of Calfornia, San Francisco Medical Center. They sent me and mfamily out to Malaysia which had just become independent. From Malaysia we moved to Hawai'i, where I still live.
One of the first things I learned growing up was that most of the children around me, and certainly later in school, were not white. For some reason -- I am not sure why even now -- I was embarrassed and eventually ashamed of my white skin. I learned early that our difference was not only of skin color, They -- my other family as I call them, and the people of the country -- lived close to the earth; felt themselves a part of All That Is. They were inventive, knew how to make do. They laughed often, but never loudly. They experienced the world around us as alive.
My mother and father, as most westerners, saw their environment as scenery or resource. My parents expressed their love for me in high hopes and expectations, and very definite ideas about how I was to achieve their expectations. My other family loved me as I was, for who I was, from day to day, not for anthing I did or did not do, or my ideas. I never questioned that when I needed a bosom to cry in, or a strong arm to rescue me from some stupidity, my other family would be there for me. With them I did not have to pretend I was tougher than I had yet learned to be. They did not believe that I was all-powerful, and I did not either.
Mike
Author
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