I can't stop thinking about this book. “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari (2011). To say this reading puts your world vision in perspective is selling it short.
This is the mother of putting things in perspective and contextualization in the grand scheme of things. I already got that feeling from Neil deGrasse Tyson in “Cosmos” (2014) and this falls in the same line of thought for me, except more human centric but surprisingly more demystifying of the human place in the cosmos and our role in it.
In Cosmos Neil degrasse tyson claims “We are the universe observing itself”, in sapiens yuval shows us we're also a mean for the world to destroy itself.
It is natural for humans to think we're the good guys of most stories we tell about ourselves. Though it is undeniable we manage to achieve great things and defy odds in many aspects, we are just as equally capable of the worst of atrocities towards each other but also towards other species.
This “speciesism” of sorts. A kind of bigotry we show toward anything not or less human than we are. Animals are often on the receiving end of this treatment as can attest our fellow cows (I love cows! did you know they have BFFs?). This speciesism is our greatest motivator and our worst downfall. We often manage great achievment when all odds are stacked against us mostly because we believe we are exceptional when there is nothing special about us. And our best mechanism for communicating that is through the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Often lies.
The book is far more eloquent about these matters, so I will not try to retell it here...
In short this book tells the human history, the real human history. Not the christian history, not the regional history, this isn't concerned with some major human achievement or a civilization's birth as a starting point. This is human history as I always wanted it to be told, you know, from the actual beginning. From when humans started deviating from their ancestors and forming their own branch on the tree of life by mean of natural selection.
I always enjoy a great display of emotional and intellectual honnesty, and this books has plenty of it. Contrary to general belief, honnesty is not as easy as not telling lies. It requires real hard work of introspection and courage for seeing things we don't like.
Yuvan Noah Harari is a gay, vegan man who does a lot of yoga. Millenial bingo from a 45 year old.
I can't believe I wasted so many years reading Murakami, this is what I should have been reading instead. Althgouh Murakami is not half bad either...
♪ Everyday – The Field