Image above: From TDHawkes Old Photo Archives. One dead mom, one living scientist. High-zoot bakery behind these two.
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Humans.
We have existed as homo sapiens for ~300,000.00 years
but longer if you count the combined lifetimes of our ancestor species.
You can google this and read extensively.
All of history informs the present.
We’d like this to be different and we do forget the past
we don’t read often in books,
language objects left by our ancestors
that inform the past, the present, and the future.
They all talk about an aspect of living as humans. They ask, ‘What is death’?
‘How can you best live’?
‘Is my society ‘right’ or ‘wrong’’ or
‘does it depend on the moment’,
and ‘what is needed?’
https://unsplash.com/@amenabarladrondeguevara
Do you remember a red bird?
You already know that the longer you live, the more you remember. It affects you…it affects all of us.
We have all thought about this.
We have ideas about it and all the other things we remember.
Some of us try to tell others about our ideas or memories. We tell our stories.
Some don’t.
Are we going to tell a society or anyone right in front of us
how to answer the primordial questions
that do occupy us as humans and societies,
those about life and death, love and hate, war and peace, how to raise a child, or goodness knows, children.
https://beckyberrycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mike-labrum-fvl4b1gjpbk-unsplash-1080.jpg
Even though societies are important and ‘out there’
how we try to tell them what to do and when is important. You know from social media (youtube; facebook; meta; twitter; reddit, etc.).
we really like to tell other people what to do. For a second, they are the
person right in front of us,
they affect every moment we live
and we take that seriously. We talk to them as such. But, in truth they are strangers. LOL. We are there.
It is a primate thing to do. We do it because it kept us alive.
I think it still does but sometimes the opposite is true.
https://unsplash.com/@tomasrobertson?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText Title here, TDHawkes:The Fading
Which one of us is perfect enough to dictate to those
in front of her or him,
or those who run whole societies?
Will we do something, even if it is nothing?
We do have to vote. (How many ways are there to do anything?)
We do have to speak.
We do have to live.
You know we will.
TDHawkes Old Archives. Mother’s mother. Cars considered used in that time are behind her. Mom’s mom is dead and she was deeply loved by her society and her family (extensions of it too). I inherited this photo.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: From TDHawkes Old Photo Archives. One dead mom, one living scientist. High-zoot bakery behind these two.