Update for anyone who might be experiencing this issue:
I finally found a workaround "hacky" solution. I exported all of my notes to a backup file on desktop, sent it to my phone, put my phone in airplane mode, imported the backup, deleted all of the duplicate notes which resulted (because the phone was partway synced), turned off airplane mode, synced, then switched to desktop and synced.
In the syncing process a lot of notes were unnecessarily deleted and replaced with exact copies. So it wasn't elegant, but it got the job done. Everything seems to be working now (I think)
Thanks a lot for the help. I tried it all but no luck. I also realized that Fdroid uses a pre-release version of Joplin - so I downgraded to the latest on the GitHub and then repeated all of these tests/suggestions but still no change.
I've reached out to the devs via a GitHub issue. Hope that helps. Thanks again!!!
The part you remember was not about eating the animal due to hunger. He was observing that when he was away from "civilization" for long enough he noticed that he started to think in a more primal way. In that case, it was tearing a squirrel to shreds raw with his teeth! (or something) :)
He didn't write "like it's life or death"! Most of the book are meditations on nature and descriptions of landscape. If that's what you came away with then you missed the point.
Timekeeper by Grand Discovery