Spells of nostalgia followed by depression

[steve B]

Having grown up a bit earlier and in a place that was a bit out of touch in a few ways (The town had a non-Bell system phone co, and at least one crank phone within my lifetime) I know exactly what you mean.

I'd love for my kids to experience some of the stuff, but it's like an entire culture is just gone.

Just know you're not alone.
And in ways that can be amazing.
There was a show on a few years ago, "living with the Kombai" Or maybe season two "Living with the mek" Two guys, one an ex military adventurer the other an anthropologist went and lived with tribes in Papua New Guinea that had little contact with outsiders. (Maybe more than they made it look like)
There was an older guy in one tribe - Hard to tell actual age since the life is so much harder- One episode he made the guys from the show chop down a large tree using a stone axe rather than the steel one they'd brought. Because it was how they did it. Later they needed a tree down and in a hurry before a storm came so he borrowed the steel axe.
Later on he was lamenting how the kids didn't want to learn the old ways, but instead were a bit obsessed with "the village" - Which consisted of a couple shacks alongside a grass runway. He knew that in a few years everything he knew would change and be replaced with something new but to his mind not necessarily better.

Yeah, the guy lived half a world away in a house made of sticks an leaves but I knew exactly what he was talking about. Upsetting and comforting all at once.

Other parts of the show were along the same lines, but much funnier. When they gave the anthropologist a hard time about doing hard manual labor - "Olly, you help the women make dinner. You can't help build the tree house because you'd fall and maybe die. Then we'd have to give your family pigs to apologize." (Their entire culture an economy seemed to revolve around small pigs)
I told my wife that while it wasn't specifically those guys, I'd worked with people just like them. Amazing how some things are so very human they cross almost all cultural boundaries.

Steve B