A Very Human Invention

An extraction from the book, Adeology

From the section: Everyone Is Agnostic—No One Knows A Goddamn Thing

        The human brain is without a doubt the most remarkably advanced evolutionary discovery in the universe known to humankind today. From a single-celled organism 3.65 billion years ago to the conscious communicating self-reflecting dreaming procreating sentient creature presently known as homo homo erectus, or, the human beings that we call: us. The human brain is so remarkable that the humans walking the earth 200,000 years ago were just as relatively capable of being as intelligent as we are today, but simply did not have access to the resources in history that we have—and, it shouldn’t go without saying: it is only through our collective ancestors’ great struggle and sacrifice that our collective great fortune is made in the headstart they’ve given us towards the future to surpass our very own wildest dreams and ambitions.

        Robert Browning’s famous line from Andrea del Sarto is doubly apt here, though, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” as humankind has surely risen to heights that could not have been possibly even dreamt of 10,000-5,000 years ago, but that humankind and the human mind would have and did consciously create many gods 10,000-5,000 years ago to satiate the need to connect with the present and contend with the unknown—and in many cases, with the past and with death. But, also, in order to understand the present and connect with the future—in an effort to remember and be remembered—the brain discovered and invented purposeful and meaningful art, and words, written language and science and mathematics, and all the other illustrious natures of the understanding of the human condition. For example: I am writing this book to the future you who is now the present you reading these words right now, dear reader—without having a publisher in place or even a word in the dictionary to reference—yet, here we both are.