Considering History
“There were humans long before there was history.” pg. 4, Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari
This past of ours
riddled with riddles
with punchlines
we’re still discovering.
But lines, oh yes,
they are rich. Lines
of life stretched across
the planet for millions
of years –
including the line of
Homo Sapiens
one of three species
in the genus homo (man).
We are the wise (sapiens).
This makes me giggle.
Also, it vibrates my brain
in a way that causes
waves of pain.
Consider the impact of
story. That for millions
of years our story was…
something.
Consider the impact
of the story that one
group of us is less than.
The riddle and the
punchline – to be punched.
This makes me weep.
Also, it vibrates my brain
in a way that causes
waves of pain.
There was a ‘we’
long, long before
there were any stories
that this ‘we’ was
to be separated.
It’s a lot to consider
that violent raging stories
came from the same
brain that figured out fire
and language and felt love
for millennia.
History is…what?
Certainly real.
Malleable. Shiftable.
Evolutionary.
Consider the living it now
the ‘we’ of the wise man
is
revolutionary.
What history
are you
living?
What ‘we’
are we
story-making?
Novel Update: Yesterday I wrote for two hours. Not straight, but I wrote. I forced myself to sit and wait. To think. To unfold. Today is busy with other commitments. I’m not sure if I’ll fit in writing for the novel. It’s a new moon too. I put on a dress to greet her.
I’m reading a lot. Poking my brain into different books. This one, received from The Husband as a Christmas gift, Sapiens A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Narari…golly, it’s jiggling my mind. I can only read a little at the time. But it’s important, to jiggle the brain. And the booty.
So today, let’s work the jiggling – read a hard book, shake your booty in the kitchen while prepping a meal.
Shake it. Shake. It. Up.
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 