A U.N. global survey compiled every nation’s many problems and placed them into four categories. Then they reduced all the problems in each of these categories to a single word, as follows:

All these words ending in "less" indicate that modern life is meaningless, exactly what Laurens Van der Post concluded after spending time with the still wild Kalahari Bushman for whom life was always meaningful. Likewise, for recreational hunters, life is full of meaning.

Meade believes that the deterioration of culture appears first among the youth and the elders. He believes we have forgotten our elders as the source of guidance to help us find our way home.

The ancient Greek story of Narcissus makes the point well. Narcissus was hunting with his young friends when he left them and went to a pond where he saw his face reflected. He fell in love with himself, but his fate soon followed in the form of suicide, the cost of turning one’s back on nature which is exactly what civilization has done. Like Narcissus we suffer from undaunted pride, and if we do not rejoin our hunting companions it may destroy us.

In the Iron Hans mythology from northern Europe, the boy ends up looking at his own reflection in the proverbial pond, but unlike Narcissus he has the Wild Man standing behind him so he does not get stuck on himself, but instead maintains his connection with nature. The Wild Man in each boy helps him discover through the hunt the power, beauty and intelligence of nature.

Meade suggests that pursuit of the "normal" is not what we need. After 9-11, President Bush recommended that we resume normal life, like visiting Disneyland or shopping at the mall. Instead, Meade advises us to look to the edge of our culture for answers. To him the edge means art as soulful expression, but for me the edge of culture is nature, which shrinks as our abusive, exploitive culture expands. At the edge of culture are the wild men and women who communicate with animals, fight to protect wild places and work to pass on the original human culture, hunting, a culture founded squarely on nature and harmonized with human nature. When culture does not harmonize human nature with nature, it is doomed to failure. Like the wild man in Iron Hans we have many elders ready to show us the way home to recovery of nature-culture.

Among the greatest gifts we may give is to inspire enthusiasm in others. Inspire means "to set on fire," and enthusiasm means "the God within." If you want to be inspired with enthusiasm, attend a Ducks Unlimited banquet and observe the wild mentors, elders from the edge committed to the protection of great fortunes and the provision of gifts for our youth. If the truth be known, the heart of the hunter holds the keys to the future of human culture. The intelligence of the heart will bring us home.