late papers, late at night, late tastes grape

this is long (slightly incoherent?) and contains the phrase 'anatomically modern human' (that is what they call us in textbooks. eh?),, , some words,/ thoughts, words

Why all of this learning? Why so much curiosity and desire to discover and ‘know’ and ‘find answers’? Recently, a moment helped to understand these ‘whys’. I sat staring at a fellow ‘anatomically modern human’; we held fierce eye contact while we contorted our faces into bizarre forms…eventually the silly-ness subsided and a feeling of, not quite serious-ness, but definitely intensity grew in the air around, between and within us. He looked like he could have been so many things at once. every moment that I was looking at him he became new in front of my eyes. I had managed to lose my preconceived notions and understandings of who this person supposedly was, including his name and whatever else I had learned to associate with him. I was looking at him with innocence, with curiosity and a (glorious) lack of knowledge…and, inevitably, I came to realize, with slight confusion and fear. I imagined we were ancestors of ours, hominids from a long time ago: our minds and brains had evolved enough that we were not quite rocks or flowers—we were aware of something, but language had not yet evolved, and we had limited ways to communicate. We could not talk of the past, the present, the future—did the past, present, or future even exist? Didn’t we create their existence, in a way, when we began to talk about ‘them’? In this moment, no, they did not exist. The moment simply was, the moments simply were, and the moments simply continued to be. We could not talk about our feelings or emotions; all we could do was look at each other, intensely, and every moment was purely this moment—we were alive, and that was all there was to it, though we could not, would not, have used those words to describe it.

Regardless of whether or not a moment like this actually happened ‘a long time ago’ between hominids of the ‘past’, it happened with us, hominids of the now, and it helped me to understand a large concept that I have been grappling with; which is, why humans ever felt the need or desire to know so much and acquire so much information. I think, among many other things (wonder, curiosity, love), it may have been out of fear and confusion; acquiring knowledge could (would, has, will continue to (hopefully)…) further understanding, allow for clarification, and perhaps dispel those (innate?) feelings of fear and confusion; or teach us to let those feelings go, rather than act with them in mind.

The teaching, the learning: these are what I came to understand as (some of) the reasons for the ‘whys’. Perhaps our ancestor hominids experienced the innocence of ‘not-knowing’; an innocence that was itself unknown, unnamed, to those who possessed it. This innocence encompassed real feelings, which we eventually named as love, wonder, fear, confusion… The intensity of those indescribable, nearly incommunicable feelings invoked our curiosity; our need to find ‘answers’… (answers which would perhaps soothe our worries, so we would not be scared?). Thus, we began looking for, and ‘finding’, ‘answers’, and are continuing to do so. We pursued knowledge and information; we are pursuing knowledge and information still. If we so choose, we are able to use this knowledge and information to dispel feelings of fear and confusion in simple ways; for example, the ability to employ language and speak to a fellow human and let her know that you are there to help her, not hurt her. However, knowledge and information is not always motivated by love; it is this ‘reality’, I think, that initially made me question why we had to go and learn so much and get so ‘smart’ in the first place. I am learning, and will continue to learn, a concept that has been learned before me: a concept embodied by simple designs, such as yin and yang; a concept expressed by other humans, such as visionary artist William Blake: the concept of necessary duality, or dichotomy—both the innocence, the light, and the experience, the knowledge, are necessary halves of the whole.

Hominid reconstructions and representations, both scientific and artistic, are representative of our current state of learning, analyzing, interpreting, acquiring knowledge and information…all in an effort, essentially, to understand/clarify/communicate. We are in the midst of experiencing that know-full experience which succeeds know-less innocence; as a friend put it, we are in the adolescent stages of our evolution. And what of young adulthood? Can we take this experience and use the knowledge gained from it to circle back to the innocence with a bit more intention and understanding? Perhaps young adulthood is too utopian; how about the elderly years? May we, at some point, be able to use this knowledge, this lived and gained and lived experience, to revisit our innocence, in a sense? It would be an innocence reached after the knowing, an innocence pursued with intention that could only have been intended because of all the experience of learning, knowing, finding, discovering, …We may be able to approach life (living things) with the innocent approach of a being who ‘knows nothing’: we look at the flower and wonder about it; we satiate our curiosity with facts and information about the flower; perhaps then we recognize the information about the flower which is unimportant (though the textbook may be interesting and worth appreciating, it is, ultimately, unimportant); then we focus on the qualities of the flower which do matter— the way the wind moves the petals and our hair; the way in which we are simply sharing space with the flower for a moment, existing beside it, within it; the smell and feel of the flower itself,…

Looking my friend in the eyes that night, I felt intoxicated by wonder and love; the slight feelings of fear and confusion, I recognized them; but it was as though I had learned enough to know that fear and confusion had nothing left to teach me, and all I needed to learn, wanted to learn, would continue to learn, was love and wonder…and to follow the example of the flower, and grow towards the light.