Human Musings

When the world began, humans were not as we are now. Prior to the invention of writing and its consequence of linear time, the human experience was one built upon the interactions of the surrounding landscape and the rhythms of the natural world. The basic human form was there, but the function had yet to be determined as clans and societies developed. Within this basic human form are the two hemispheres of the brain: the spatial, emotional right brain, and the decisive, analytical left. Leonard Shlain argues that the right brain is more feminine, while the left is more masculine. However, he states "Any particular society can accentuate one or the other of these two ways of interacting with the world, depending on the demands of the environment or the shaping influences of its inventions" (Shlain 27). As one of these inventions, writing shapes the brain and the human form to "read these printed words as tribal hunters once read the tracks of deer, moose, and bear imprinted in the soil of the forest floor" (Abram 95). As writing and its component of linear time come to dominate the human expression, the attitude towards the cyclical earth are transformed so that "In relation to nature the human person is a lonely exile sojourning in a strange and hostile world, alien not only to his physical environment, but to his own body, both of which he is encouraged to fear and attempt to conquer" (Callicott 63-64). As humans crafted an abstract alphabet from the symbolic aleph-bet, we grew further away from our rhythmic roots toward our climax, in which we can contemplate, sacred space, love, beauty, ethics, law, and the inner journey. It is here the human experience begins to resonate across the globe throughout time.

As humans, we continue to treasure the natural world in which we find ourselves and the visceral meaning certain places hold. Sacred spaces can be as specific as the Kaaba or as encompassing as the Mysterious Beyond. In his film Grizzly Man, director Werner Herzog's view of a chaotic nature humans are no longer equipped to handle contends with his subject Timothy Treadwell's view that humans belong with nature and can readily be accepted into the wild. In these two views, we can see the preserved attitudes of humans since the break of man and mountain. These views are also present in Shakespeare's The Tempest, with Caliban the wild man at peace with nature and Prospero the magician using his wits to defeat and conquer nature. The attitudes of Treadwell and Caliban are expressed in the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux, where entire halls are dedicated to the portrayal of the game hunted and the rhythms of the earth. As Shlain says, in each person there is the literate left brain and the sympathetic right, and so in every person there is the possibility of experiencing both the connection and conquering of nature. In between these polarities we find the sacred spaces, right brained in accords to natural energy and left brained in abstracting significance that can be passed down. Being human means being a part of this earth, and in choosing how we interact with nature we reveal the spectrum of right and left brain practices encountered in every lifetime.

In every natural life, there is some connection to love and beauty, although they are not the same thing. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian becomes so possessed by his own beauty that he seeks to be untouched by age and sickness for the sake of preserving his youth. While it would appear in this case that beauty is an asset, through art it is revealed that beauty is an ideal that inspires human whimsy. From the Woman of Wittenberg to the Egyptian profile facing out, beauty is treasured not as what is real, but what is desired. In the same way, love is woven in desire of human connection. In the erotic "The Song of Songs," love consumes one as beauty can, but has a greater hold that takes place of food, purpose, and reason. Sainte-Columbe in All the Mornings of the World is driven insane by the death of his beloved wife, and thus composes for her with all his soul. In the human experience, love and beauty are passions which entertain the mind in such a way it is inescapable. While neither are permanent, the memory of Dorian's beauty on the one day his portrait was completed or the swell of Keats' muse's breast beside him move us to treasure these moments in "flashbulb memories" that remain with us until our deaths.

With emotive right brains and analytical left brains, humans search for guidance in how to lead their lives. Preserved in religious texts such as the Ten Commandments, the Holiness Code, and the Buddhist Precepts, a set of "universal" ethics emerge. These ethics seem rooted in the principle of conducting oneself as one would prefer to be respected by others. Perhaps the most honored of these universal ethics is that of refraining from taking another life; in Crime and Punishment, however, Raskolnikov challenges virtue with philosophical superiority. Raskolnikov claims that the ones who utter a new word, thus progressing the human race, are the ones who are allowed to break the rules in the name of vision. Despite his theoretical convictions, Raskolnikov falls a victim to guilt, and so we observe that there must be a fundamental morality in every individual that is intended to guide he or she. Immanuel Kant suggests that the personal center of morality is vital to each human life, and thus every human should treat others as equals, or as "ends and not means." The existentialists (Sarte, Camus) propose that a life is measured by one's one choices, and that by choosing one way we deem it appropriate for all others to follow. In the human existence, choices we make register to compose an individual, whether they are made through doctrine or trial and error.

All of these topics make up the overall inner journey, which in essence is what it means to be human. As they say, the sum of its parts are less than the whole. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, searches for immortality in response to the death of his best friend. While he overcomes great obstacles, Gilgamesh never becomes immortal, and thus lives the rest of his life building the great walls of Uruk and being remembered eternally. Likewise, Shakespeare's Hamlet contemplates whether life is living as "Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away" (Shakespeare Act 5 SC 1, 216-221). If all life ends with death, what is the meaning of life and what comes afterwards? In Waking Life, it is supposed that life after death is a sequence of dreams, as though we continue into dreamtime as indigenous peoples supposed prior to writing. In this dreamtime, the meaning is found in the contemplation of whether what is real and what is dream matters. Life is the choice, and death is the exit, or entrance, onto whatever awaits. In our existence, being human is the only option. There is no escape, whether we are the architects of our own destinies as Existentialists propose, or if we are at the mercy of a higher power. Being human means we encounter all the same energies as everyone else and take our own shot at living it and seeing what it amounts to when even our written words cannot express what comes next.