🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕

Endlessly fascinating, this treasure trove of wisdom easily takes the place as my absolute favorite non-fiction read of 2024 (and likely beyond).

Written by a retired academic, the author’s quest for answers sees him following connections crossing over into so many fields the result is a veritable cornucopia of “things to think about” — for this reader, a boundless and expansive treat for the mind.

So what, after all this, — is a human?

We humans are systems and processes, biological and chemical (“transacting swarms”). We are composed of multitudes – our own as well as alien (microorganism-based) DNA. We have a brain that keeps us cozy with a concocted “self” and illusions of free-will, atop a deep and unfathomable unconscious.

We are animals – mostly the same as our biological kith and kin (and even the lowly termite). We have evolved language, culture, artifacts — to keep us safe, mark our status, and allow us to “belong”. In so doing we have unleashed the opposite, evolving our domesticated world into structures increasingly discordant with our very natures (we are self-created “monsters”).

And yet. We are, after all, made of the same “stuff” as all living beings. We have the ability to see into a vast pool of “connective-ness” with our physical surroundings. Symbolically, through “specific universals” we can find, communicate and embrace both our uniqueness and our commonality, releasing an enacted morality that allows us all (and our entire planet) to flourish.

I adored this book, — its passion, inclusiveness, fearlessness, and incredible insights (all of which is, hopefully, not a minute too late).

A great big thank you to the Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.