What is real?
Physical – objective facts … things I can see, touch, hear, smell & taste?
Or the imagined – the gods, nations, culture, economics?
Reality will change if I tell a different story.
When I started reading Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens in March I was oddly relieved. The stories . . . our collective histories, today’s worldview – my personal narrative; all fantasy. We buy into the illusion that it’s real.
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
Reading this “brief history of mankind” offered a different perspective – the agricultural revolution … the industrial revolution … technology, didn’t necessarily make life better. Harari says the agricultural revolution is “History’s Biggest Fraud” – that it only kept “more people alive under worse conditions” – “the pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship.”
“One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”
The “Agricultural Revolution” – a minuscule moment in time compared to our ancestor’s hunting and gathering days . . . aren’t the “great leap forward for humanity” we believe them to be. That’s a myth, a great deception; one I musta bought or I wouldn’t be stressing out over today’s current flash in the narrative timeline.
Yes, oddly relieved.
Relieved to be advised that Homo Sapiens have been fucking up the planet from the get go. No reason to get all twisted up about today’s shit show in my back yard. Amazing how this un-funked me. Infinity … Eternity … and Me. When I think about now – this time in the history of everything, my angst isn’t going to make a bit of difference.
Relieved . . . for a minute. Then came a mini existential crisis.
Is this world – My Life, pre-determined? Do I have a destiny? Are some things meant to be?
Am I doomed – or graced – to be born of this time … flounder about in my worldview stew … and then die?
What about free will?
What is my moral responsibility as a player during this sliver of time in the universe?
Can my puny actions make a difference?
… to be continued
