10.2 Thor Heyerdahl - Reflections on Life - by Thor Heyerdahl by Thor Heyerdahl

Summer 2002 (10.2)
Page 23

Thor Heyerdahl
Reflections on Life

by Thor Heyerdahl

Other articles related to Thor Heyerdahl:

(1) Thor Heyerdahl in Azerbaijan: KON-TIKI Man by Betty Blair (AI 3:1, Spring 1995)
(2) The Azerbaijan Connection: Challenging Euro-Centric Theories of Migration by Heyerdahl (AI 3:1, Spring 1995)
(3) Azerbaijan's Primal Music Norwegians Find 'The Land We Come From' by Steinar Opheim (AI 5.4, Winter 1997)
(4) Thor Heyerdahl in Baku (AI 7:3, Autumn 1999)
(5) Scandinavian Ancestry: Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan - Thor Heyerdahl (AI 8.2, Summer 2000)
(6) Quote: Earlier Civilizations - More Advanced - Thor Heyerdahl (AI 8.3, Autumn 2000)
(7) The Kish Church - Digging Up History - An Interview with J. Bjornar Storfjel (AI 8.4, Winter 2000)
(8) Adventurer's Death Touches Russia's Soul - Constantine Pleshakov (AI 10.2, Summer 2002)
(9) First Encounters in the Soviet Union - Thor Heyerdahl (AI 10.2, Summer 2002)
(10) Thor Heyerdahl's Final Projects - Bjornar Storfjell (AI 10.2, Summer 2002)
(11) Voices of the Ancients: Rare Caucasus Albanian Text - Dr. Zaza Alexidze (AI 10.2, Summer 2002)
(12) Heyerdahl Burns "Tigris" Reed Ship to Protest War - Letter to UN - Bjornar Storfjell, Blair (AI 11.1Winter 2003)

Above: "Ra 2", the reed ship Thor Heyerdahl used for his expedition across the Atlantic, from the coast of Africa southwest toward South America, 1969. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl.

Civilization
We have always been taught that navigation is the result of civilization, but modern archeology has demonstrated very clearly that this is not so. People had already settled the islands in the Mediterranean and around Great Britain long before the first pharaoh built the pyramids in Egypt.

The art of the pre-pharonic people in Egypt and the pre-Sumerian peoples in Mesopotamia show ocean-going vessels.Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication - particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials.

Today we have to fight the political walls and divisions that separate us. We must communicate across all political, religious and racial barriers.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, October 6, 1994.

Saving the Earth
If there were something I could wish for in the future, it would be that there would be an end to all the conflicts between the different religions, and that everyone who believes in a creative force behind nature would use intelligence, conscience, intuition, the Holy Spirit and everything else that is in our collective power to get advice and help to preserve nature before we completely disturb the great Day of Rest.

"In The Footsteps of Adam by Thor Heyerdahl," London: Little Brown, 2000, page 298.

Future
We are all on explorations into the unknown and it is by looking backward in the wake of our trail that we can see the course we are taking.

"In The Footsteps of Adam by Thor Heyerdahl," London: Little Brown, 2000, page 292.

Where is God?
I feel that God is behind every flower and every tree in the woods. He is behind every mountain rock and every foam-crested wave in the sea. God is omnipresent. I am willing to reach my hands in the air and admit that I have a limited number of senses and that they are insufficient for me to grasp the whole truth. If all people were blind, we wouldn't have known what color is...

Therefore, I refrain from having a fixed picture of God and what He might be. It can be a magnetic field. It can be a law. It can be anything. But if we are going to believe in the Bible as a basis for our religion, then we at least have to give up thinking of Him as an old man with a beard and slippers.

It says in the Bible, in plain words, that God made a self-portrait. He created man in His own image - man and woman - for God is Love.Why should we start thinking of a god up in the clouds with wings, if He dwells within us in the spirit of Love?!

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 205.

Time does not exist
I have never been able to grasp the meaning of time. I don't believe it exists. I've felt this again and again, when alone and out in nature. On such occasions, time does not exist. Nor does the future exist. For every minute, the future is becoming the past. Therefore, there is no "now" either. It's only a transitional form. I'm left with the feeling that God in His wisdom, found it necessary to give man the belief in, or the concept of, time. But time only exists in our mind, and solely as a figment of our imagination. My age exists within my awareness. That is simple enough. But if we begin thinking about the world being over 100 million years old, then it's absolutely by chance that you and I are sitting here alive today, while all the others are dead or have never been born. I also believe that when one dies, one may wake up to the reality that proves that time does not exist.

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 205.

Greatest lessons
One learns more from listening than speaking.And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear within university walls.

"In The Footsteps of Adam by Thor Heyerdahl," London: Little Brown, 2000, page 291.

Enemies vs. Allies
Circumstances cause us to act the way we do. We should always bear this in mind before judging the actions of others. I realized this from the start during World War II.

A personal example is the fact that I grew up in an environment where we knew little or nothing about what was going on in Russia [Soviet Union]. It was all a mystery and everyone who lived there was diabolical. This was not uncommon for many people in the interim between the wars. However on the day Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, the newspapers changed their tuneCompared to our common enemy, Nazism, the Russians were our great allies. Therefore, I feel convinced that any political picture can be changed to suit the needs of the powers that be.

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 205-206.

True happiness
Life has brought me together with many different people, not only all types, but from every walk of life, and I have encountered far more happiness, if "happiness" is the word I am looking for, among those who had little of the material goods than we tend to deem necessary to achieve happiness.

In my experience, it is rarer to find a really happy person in a circle of millionaires than among vagabonds. I say this without trying to romanticize the life of a vagabond. It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch.

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 203.

The word "enemy"
If there is anything I detest hearing or reading in a newspaper, it is the word 'enemy'. I consider it bestial and primitive that anyone today can use such an expression. This is done only as autosuggestion, and to hood wink people. A civilized nation can have no enemies, and one cannot draw a line across a map, a line that doesn't even exist in nature and say that the ugly enemy lives on the one side, and good friends live on the other.

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 206.

Origin of Hate
Those who have experienced the most, have suffered so much that they have ceased to hate. Hate is more for those with a slightly guilty conscience, and who by chewing on old hate in times of peace wish to demonstrate how great they were during the war.

"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 207.

True Heroism
I don't believe in war as a solution to any kind of conflict, nor do I believe in heroism on the battlefield because I have never seen any. I was in uniform for four years, and I know that heroism doesn't occur from taking orders, but rather from people who through their own willpower and strength are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea.
"Thor Heyerdahl, The Explorer," by Snorre Evensberget. Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag A.S., 1994, page 207.
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