The Mastodon Effect

Imagine that you’re a dude. You’re a prehistoric dude, hanging out with your tribe. You are dressed in animal hides, many of which you procured yourself. You’re pretty good at making scrapers, small stone tools that are used for scraping the flesh off of animals skin and scraping bark off of trees. You make your own scrapers, of course, because you’re old enough now. Not only that, the tool is customized to your grip. They just work better when you make them yourself.

You used a scraper when you fashioned your spear. A scraper helped peel the bark off of the long branch that eventually became the shaft of the spear. You took great care in removing the bark. You made sure that the bark came off in long, thin strands. Your grandmother showed you how to make a kind of rope by braiding strands of bark together. You made a rope and used it to affix the tear-drop-shaped stone to the business end of the spear. You split the end of the branch and wedged the round end of the stone in it. You used the thin rope to secure the stone in place. This spearhead itself was made by using a smaller stone to knock flakes off of a larger stone. You took your time and created the shape you wanted. All along the edge, you flaked the stone on both sides. You made sure the edge was sharp. The spearhead ends in a sharp point. The point can pierce tough skin, and the edges open the wound wide.

Your spear is a precision weapon, and, in your expert hands, it is deadly.

When the sun rises, you and several of the hunters in your tribe set out on a hunt. Today, you mean business. Today, you will take down a mastodon. You are scared. But it is a fear that you have overcome before. It is… exhilarating. With your emotions in check, you and your tribesmen are singularly focused on the task at hand. It has been so for many hunts before, and it will be so for many hunts to come. The hunters who came before you had this skill, and your bloodline will give rise to many men to come who will also share this ability.

Concentration. Focus. Single-minded determination to take down one of the greatest mammals that ever walked this Earth.

So, if you want to know why I can’t multi-task like my wife can, blame it on my ancestors…the hunters who came before me. Men just didn’t have the luxury of being all distracted during a hunt. I can’t help it if the men who came before me weren’t picking berries. I’m just a victim of The Mastodon Effect.