Knowing
When you wake up about five times in the middle of your afternoon nap thinking about something, it’s significant. So I was reading this book — Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I am about three chapters in and no kidding, I am thinking a lot about lot of stuff now. I think the author has added many of his opinions to the books and hence it might not be an accurate picture of everything but nevertheless, it’s been a good book so far. So its a book that outlines the journey of us, the Sapiens. This is no way a review of the book. This is a peek into the chain of thoughts taking place in my mind as I am reading the book.
WHY?
Prior to this book, I had read Origin by Dan Brown. That was the first time I came across the idea of explaining the probable reason for existence of life in the first place. Not “How” but “Why”. Even though that book is a fiction, a quick google search showed that the idea is not his fiction apparently. The answer was a hypothesis by an MIT physicist and he claims it is ENTROPY. While not scientifically proven yet, this idea fascinated me. In simple terms, Entropy this a quantitative measure of disorder in universe. And according to thermodynamics, the Entropy (measure of disorder) of the universe which can be considered an isolated system will always increase over time. The change in entropy can never be negative, i.e. it will never decrease. Life, as per the hypothesis, could have come into existence to create entropy! Consuming and dissipating energy increases entropy and to think about it, all that life does is the same. On a cosmic scale, life has no meaning. The stars don’t care if you are alive. But apparently, all the life could have been a stroke of luck in universe that proved itself awesome time and again at creating disorder that nature allowed and nurtured for millennia now. It’s like this. Why water droplets take the shape of spheres or snowflakes form the way they do? It’s physics (laws of nature). And “Why life?” . Physics, that’s why. The more complex organisms evolved in ways to increase the entropy more and more effectively. And here me out on this…
YOU and ME, we are here to CREATE DISORDER!
If that does not make you stop for a while and rethink a lot of things, I will be surprised.
HOW?
Reading Sapiens just felt like adding more flavor to this hypothesis. We humans, the most complex and dangerous species on the face of this Earth have caused a lot of chaos and disorder to say the least. We evolved and developed tools and characteristics more complicated than any other species in a relatively very short span. Some species had and have lived and evolved for many more millions of years compared to humans. But we rule this Earth and did so in very short amount of time. By sheer chance of evolution, there was this one mutation sometime down the line that showed promise. Something that could allow us to be in the forefront of creating disorder and nature apparently rewarded that. Hundred’s of thousands of years ago, we are insignificant. We survived, not “Lived”. The largest mammals to roam earth couldn’t have cared less about this two legged creature. But then we grew brains so large, which practically should be problematic for survival as brain consumes a very large portion of our energy supply. But as I stated earlier, it looks like nature prefers such behavior. Our brain not only consumes a lot of the body’s energy, it gave us the ability to siphon out energy from every nook and corner we could lay our eyes on. Those enormous mammals with tiny brains didn’t stand a chance. We roamed the surface wiping out one after other. Yuval mentions that on an evolutionary viewpoint, winning is having more copies of yourself. The more YOU, the more you contribute to your goal.
In the book Yuval claims that our ancestors, the early humans, hunters and gatherers and early agriculturalists, have caused more mass extinctions than any in history. Changing the ecology and molding it in ways that rendered it hostile for those that were there for millennia before us.
That’s how. That’s how we managed to do everything we did and nature got what it wanted. More disorder.
WHAT?
So what has our life been like while we succeeded to outshine others and become nature’s favorites? Apparently, we have gone from Great to Crappy. I’ll put these in points and score myself (ME) against my first ancestors (AN)
1. Early humans were more skillful. Yeah, they had fine motor skills to turn a rock to weapon within minutes, the build to run and climb trees. Me? I can hardly climb four flights of stairs without feeling out of breath.
AN — 1, ME — 0
2. Before agricultural revolution, humans had more balanced diet. Varied sources of food, berries, animals, fruits, nuts etc etc. Because they ended up in different environments constantly. Me? I survive mostly on Dal, Chaval, Roti and curry. Health and Build:
AN — 2, ME — 0
3. Work life. They spent about 35 hours a week to hunt, gather and have food. Rest of the time was spent on learning never before known things, social interactions and family. Constantly feeling rewarded for inventing and discovering new things. Me? Hardly do I feel rewarded or grateful for a days work. Even if this changes in future, it would cost me in terms of time. Its always a trade off. Either Work or Life. Work-life balance:
AN — 3, ME — 0
4. Longevity of life. No argument here. They lived well if they made it beyond twenties. I can say with high degree of certainty, we win here.
AN — 3, ME — 1
5. They had a fairly simplistic social structure. They cared a lot for each other. They shared generously. Apparently, they had multiple partners hoping that their offspring will have the best qualities of the amazing people in the group.
Dumb — Yes
Materialism/Jealousy/Infidelity/Insecurity/Stress/Depression/Worry for future/ What am I even doing with my life?- No.
AN — 4, ME — 1
6. Creativity. Dips hand in mud and leans against the wall. Hand print.
Whole gang: “ Damn!”
Entire future generations: “Damn!”
Me? I post a cover song.
Brother: “Lol, only 20 likes? XD”
Keeping the funny part aside, it feels amazing to put myself in the shoes (or feet as they didn’t have shoes?) of early humans and feeling thrilled to draw a stick figure. The sense of achievement and reward was more probable then compared to now. So creativity and work satisfaction:
AN — 5, ME — 1
7. Goes for a walk and returns with stories of how he was chased by a Sabre-tooth. Everyday is an adventure. Adrenaline rush is the norm. In fact, a trait, unlike us who try to find this very rush by sticking our head out of a moving vehicle. Who is dumb now? The last adventurous thing I did was to use my vehicle without pollution check certificate. Getting a rush out of how I would defend myself blaming lock down and escaping the wrath of police if they catch me. So definitely, adventurous life:
AN — 6, ME — 1
8. Luxury. This is very subjective. If having a clear sky is a luxury, AN wins. If having sweet food easily accessible is a luxury, ME wins. So let this be a tie.
AN — 6.5, ME — 1.5
9. Happiness. The above points all are in one way or other a subset of this. But personally, I feel there are many more aspects where they could have easily had a chance to say they are truly and honestly happy. Me? I am not happy that I slept the entire afternoon because I feel I wasted half of my day! Like seriously, what the hell?
AN — 7.5, ME — 1.5
10. You know, I feel they LIVED while trying to SURVIVE and we, we SURVIVE while trying to LIVE.
And for the only reason that I am able to come up with such amazing sentences and be able to share with you instantly, I give myself a point.
AN — 7.5, ME — 2.5
I have tried to list things that form the basic of my everyday life:
Health, Work, Creativity, Satisfaction, Societal structure and relationships, Adventure, Luxuries and overall Happiness. Maybe I am too critical but I am sure there is a reason behind it. So yeah, finally
AN — 7.5, ME — 2.5
SO?
If I keep aside the fact that I feel used by nature, I feel the journey of humans has been very fascinating. We might be insignificant on the cosmic scale, we might be just pawns of nature but heck, we are humans. We might be creating more copies of ourselves just to create more disorder and win the evolutionary race. But we are different. There are other species that have managed to compete and perhaps even give us a run for the money on this race. An example? As weird as it sounds, WHEAT. Just read the book. It will do greater justice than me trying to explain here. But we are not wheat (a sentence I never thought I would say until now). We have the power to question things. We have the power to KNOW. And we are in this together.
This picture gives me goosebumps every time I look at it. Can we all just use this “Knowing” to “LIVE” and not “SURVIVE” while serving the nature for the reasons we were actually conceived for? Can we not use this ability of knowing to figure out a way to serve nature while being considerate to nature’s other children? Can we not be a better version of ourselves, a better generation that the future generations too will one day compare themselves to, and feel lacking but in a good way? Can we just all leave a beautiful collection of hand prints that will still be seen as crazy awesome when looked back because we did it TOGETHER?
