Take it or leave it...

Happy new year! It's customary to declare resolutions. I'm not usually a resolutions kinda guy, I just generally want to live better. I spent most of new years eve reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. To tell you the truth I couldn't put it down. It's just that good!




It's starts out with a disillusioned writer answering a strange ad in the personals section:

TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

Things get even stranger when it's revealed that this teacher is actually a wise old Gorilla named Ishmael, who communicates with his students telepathically. The writer begins visiting Ishmael regularly and learning his secrets. Thinly hidden in this fictional narrative are deep philosophical teachings.



Things that struck a deep chord with me. I've always instinctively known that we humans are animals. That knowledge of good and evil doesn't somehow make us better than the animals. Because good and evil themselves don't exist and are merely illusions of our own creation.

It goes beyond good and evil and answers the questions about who we are and the path we're on. Not just merely as a civilization but as a species. By ignoring the basic law of life, the law that all life forms of earth obey except man... By ignoring this law we our robbing our selves of our own evolution. What is this "law of life" you ask? It's a law just like Newton's law of gravity or the laws of aerodynamics. I won't articulate it here. You'll just have to read the book.

And I highly recommend you do read it. It's available fairly cheap from Amazon. Or even better, borrow it for free from your local library.