For most of us, everyday circumstances are set in a framework of a twenty-four hour day. We awaken and are thrust into a set agenda for work, and (if we are lucky and balanced) then we enter a set period where we can choose the manner of our play, before returning to sleep to finish out the last hours of the day. … Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time (Yeah, I’m RETIRED).
This daily regiment rarely allows us to stop and contemplate ourselves as Homo Sapiens. Who are we; what is our history; where are we headed; and can our individual decisions keep us from extinction?
For very broad perspectives, and answers to some of these questions, I suggest three books: Sapiens-A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari; Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson; and If You Come to Earth, by Sophie Blackall.
an illustration from If You Come to Earth
Human Connections
From the back cover of Sapiens:
In Sapiens, Professor Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology, and economics, and incorporating full-color illustrations throughout the text, Harari explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behavior from the legacy of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?
Bold, wide-ranging, and provocative, Sapiens integrates history and science to challenge everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our heritage...and our future.
From the front cover of Starry Messenger:
With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant and beautiful truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.
Excerpts from Starry Messenger:
Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into believing that something is true when it is false, or that something is false when it is true.
Objective truths of science are not founded in belief systems. They are not established by the authority of leaders or the power of persuasion. Nor are they learned from repetition or gleaned from magical thinking. To deny objective truths is to be scientifically illiterate, not to be ideologically principled.
What is civilization, if not what humans have built for themselves as a means to transcend primal urges and as a landscape on which to live, work, and play. …whatever opinions you currently hold, an infusion of science and rational thinking can render them deeper and more informed than ever before.
Upon death, there’s no evidence that you experience the consciousness you enjoyed while alive. That’s not as odd as it sounds. Were you conscious before you were conceived? Did you complain, “Where am I? How come I’m not on Earth?” No, you simply didn’t exist, and if you’re lucky to be born, your nonexistence before life bookends your nonexistence after death.
Yes, life is better than death. …We get to invoke our faculties of reason to figure out how the world works. But we also get to smell the flowers. We get to bask in divine sunsets and sunrises, and gaze deeply into the night skies they cradle. We get to live, and ultimately die, in this glorious universe.
From If You Come to Earth:
Sophie Blackall’s children’s book, If You Come to Earth, answers the question, What would you tell an alien about life on the Earth?
This beautiful book is inspired by the thousands of children Sophie Blackall has met during her travels around the world in support of UNICEF and Save the Children. “If you come to Earth, there are a few things you need to know . . . We live in all kinds of places. In all kinds of homes. In all kinds of families. Each of us is different. But all of us are amazing. And, together, we share one beautiful planet.”
My takeaway from these books is that as humans we are often taught to believe as truths a series of myths that for those unable to think critically results in a misguided trajectory of life that confines us to perpetual stagnation and misery. We must be guided by objective truths evidenced from the scientific method, and eschew mythical ideologies perpetrated by power-seeking narcissists. We need to stop long enough to be inquisitive like children, and then critically question our belief systems so that our actions support the betterment of all life on Earth.
CPW
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