Wise, Wise Men

Have you ever thought about how we got here? I mean, us… humans, how we got to walking on 2 legs vs. commuting on 4 paws? Were we the only special ones to accomplish this feat?

Most of us have attempted to delve into this journey at different depths – some of us stopped at the history and biology lessons in school, others made it the purpose of their research and lives, and still others (like me) satisfy the need to understand by reading books like Sapiens.

We talk about time every day as an absolute (even though it really isn’t), and we learn about the concept of space as if it has been a reality throughout (which is also incorrect). We pick up our wine glasses, clink them in a joyous fashion with our intellectual/ pseudo-intellectual friends talking about the human condition.

And yet, we are still growing. The same way that the early primates first figured out how to develop tools to hunt with, we today create tools to sell with. We are but a coalition of inventors and discoverers, and what perhaps defines human success most critically is the innate curiosity, the ability to create, and the never-ending lack of satisfaction. We are a species driven by learning even when the very definition of survival has changed.

Thanks for following along – for hopefully agreeing to all I said, because now is when I throw before you the quirkiest thing I find through my readings. A species of learners and inventors, or animals who continue to this day, with COVID, figure out how to survive, calls its ancestors from roughly a hundred thousand years ago, ‘homo sapiens sapiens’. What’s weird about that? Well, it means ‘wise, wise men’ and if we are arrogant enough to name ourselves that then how are we not arrogant enough to become complacent and stop learning? COVID is probably an event that should trigger questioning of our wisdom if it hasn’t already on a mass scale. Because, to me, wise men (and women) are only wise if they realize they don’t know it all and that they aren’t in fact invincible.

So, my fellow humans, take a step back today when you have that extra time in your shelter-in-place days and think about what tools you need for survival – don’t reinvent the wheel, but also don’t hesitate to invent if the wheel that fits doesn’t exist. Be curious, and be humble, because if everything goes well our successors will give us a name that has more to do with our curiosity and our spirit of invention, than the word “wise” can encompass.