The Last American Man, published in 2002, was written by Elizabeth Gilbert about Eustace Conway, a modern day “Mountain Man”. Much more than just a biography, it is also an insightful examination into psychology, sociology, family dynamics, American history, living off the land, human endurance, and leadership. And it is extremely well written by the author of Eat, Pray, Love (2006).
Another curious aspect of the book is that first, it is really only half a biography, as it was written when Eustace Conway was only about 40 years old, not dead, and very physically robust. Second, Gilbert had extraordinary access to her subject, his family, and the community around him, including a number of ex-girlfriends. The narrative is extremely intimate and, at the same time, sympathetic.
In addition to the great job Gilbert does in telling the story, the story itself is remarkable. In his youth, Eustace spent a lot of time in the woods, exploring, building, hunting, and eventually acquiring a collection of 100+ turtles, the care for which he eventually recruited a team of classmates. At 17 he left home to live in a tee-pee of his own construction. He eventually hiked the Appalachian Trail with no food or water other than what he could find along the way. He rode on horseback from Jekyll Island, Georgia on the east coast to San Diego, California on the west coast in 103 days. Amongst many other adventures, Eustace created Turtle Island, eventually accumulating 1,000 acres of land in the Appalachian mountains outside of Boone, North Carolina. He earned the money to buy the land by giving presentations to school children about how to live in the wild.
There are many great reasons to recommend this book, now 21 years old, but here I want to focus on one central theme - the enormous frustration of Eustace Conway in attempting to impart his view of living to the rest of the world, primarily young people.
Over the years he has given thousands of lectures on his philosophy of living off the land, practical skills, and maintaining a strong connection with the natural world, and for the same purpose he has operated many evolving educational programs at Turtle Island. Some of these programs involved living and working at Turtle Island for two years as apprentices to Eustace. And, apparently, he has been a demanding task master. The percentage of failed apprentices, according to the book, is about 90%. Gilbert gives Eustace an out for this high failure rate.
On the other hand, maybe the number makes perfect sense. Maybe it shouldn’t be easy to stay on Turtle Island. Maybe only 10 percent of the population are able to cut it.
As Eustace explains it:
Again and again I attract people who have dreams of nature but no experience with nature at all. They come up here, and the only comparison they make is “Wow, it looks just like the Nature Channel.”
Eustace is extremely competent and exacting at every task he sets his mind to. And so he demands that same level of competence, or something near to it, of his apprentices. He rarely gets it. Maybe that expectation is unreasonable, and maybe those attracted to “dreams of nature” contain a higher proportion of incompetent people. Eustace complains how children cannot do the simplest things like carry a bucket of water, hammer a nail, and roll a hoola hoop:
What kind of children are we raising in North America? Listen, I can guaran-damn-tee you that every child in Africa knows how to roll a fucking wheel. It’s a question of understanding natural law. The world is ruled by a few basic physical laws — leverage, inertia, momentum, thermodynamics — and if you’re out of touch with these fundamental principles, then you can’t hammer a nail, carry a bucket, or roll a wheel. That means you’re out of touch with the natural world. Being out of touch with the natural world means you’ve lost your humanity and that you live in an environment that you completely do not understand. Can you even begin to imagine my horror at this? Can you begin to comprehend what’s been forgotten in just a few generations? It took mankind one million years to learn how to roll a wheel, but it only took us fifty years to forget.
In addition to noting Eustace’s flaws as a leader and teacher, Gilbert identifies the broader problem, to say it plainly, of spoiled children. Eustace exclaims: “The hardest thing is to get young people to trust me and do as I say.” Gilbert expounds on this pervasive character deficit:
Not many people can subdue their egos. The talent for submission is especially hard for modern American kids who are raised in a culture that has taught them from infancy that their every desire is vital and sacred. Their parents, their teachers, their leaders, their media, have always asked them, “What do you want?” I used to see this when I was a diner waitress, of all things. Parents would interrupt ordering food for the entire table to hover around their toddler and ask, “What do you want, honey?” And they’d stare moon-eyed at the child, waiting desperately for the answer. Oh my God, what will he say? What does he want? The world holds its breath! Eustace Conway is right on target when he says parents did not give their children this kind of power a hundred years ago. Or even fifty years ago. I myself can declare with all honesty that on the rare occasions when my mother and her six Midwestern-farm siblings ate in restaurants as children, if any of them had dared to make a personal demand of their father . . . well, they just wouldn’t have.
But Americans are raised differently now. And the “What do you want, honey?” culture has created the kids who are flocking to Eustace today. They undergo enormous shock when they quickly discover that he doesn’t give a shit what they want. And between 85 and 90 percent of them can’t handle that.
Twenty-one years later, and this problem has festered and grown worse. It’s bad enough that someone can mistake the Nature Channel for actual nature. But this disconnect from reality has been reinforced by electronic social media which draws children even more deeply into unreality and away from the real world around them, and by lies told by teachers, government, media, and parents that the child is the center of the universe. He or she or whatever can defy reality by changing gender on a whim, or become no gender at all, the fantasy called non-binary. FaceBook has changed its name to Meta to promote the metaverse which only exists in cyberspace, not in the actual three dimensional space around us. I guess the notion is that people will get plugged into this metaverse and just exist there instead of in reality. Can you say “Matrix”?
Perhaps this disconnect from reality is a way to explain how billions of people around the world, and especially those in the first world of western nations, including Australia and New Zealand, were hoodwinked into accepting an experimental jab in spite of all the evidence that it was unnecessary, ineffective, and dangerous. And how the in-your-face proclamations of the globalists that they intend to enslave (and reduce!) humanity through electronic “money”, digital ID, and 15-minute cities, can go ignored by so many. And how the tyranny of a so-called World Health Organization over one’s very body can be so blithely accepted.
I see a future in which most people, who have no competence in practical matters, no skills in self-sufficiency, and no discernment, will be quickly subsumed in a world-wide control grid due to their unshakable dependence on the system, and a minority (it’s hard to say how large or small) who will escape that fate by reliance on their own sweat, blood, effort, and persistence. The former will be reduced by about 90% (interesting how that number appears again) if the globalists fulfill their desires, which might make the latter a majority. (!) It’s time to learn how to live in reality and outside the fictional system, and that time is running short.
I don’t know what Eustace Conway and Elizabeth Gilbert think of all this now. But it’s easy to believe that Eustace has, to a certain extent, thrown up his hands in frustration. He is still operating the programs at Turtle Island, but with perhaps a fair bit less idealism, and a little more practicality. Interesting how the delusions of some can reinforce realism in another.
Maybe I’m too late with my message. Maybe I’m too early. All I can say is that I think this country is suffering through a mortal emergency. I think it’s a nightmare and that we’re doomed if we don’t change. And I don’t even know what to suggest anymore. I’m tired of hearing myself talk.
BTW - It really is a great book!
Wow, what a powerful report! I’m telling you, there are very intelligent people who don’t see what is happening. I’m baffled by that, even disillusioned. But who knows, maybe a miracle will happen. 🤞🏼