Yes. It is instructive. Go back to a text, a novel from 1880, written by one of the great, world-famous novelists. Time-trip to a time before phones, computers, cars, airplanes, TVs, movie theaters. A time before the great World Wars. Before Stalin, Hitler, FDR, Lenin. Before Vietnam, Iraq, Kardashians. Before Warhol, Picasso, Mao, Elvis, Beatles, Dylan, bell-bottoms. Before Summer of Love and the apotheosis of Pop Culture. Before 9/11 and the Holocaust.
Burn off all that hoo-hah. Eliminate all that 20th and 21st century hurly-burly. Go back. Distill it down. To another time and place. What are you left with? Human Beings. Living. Thinking. Loving. Hating. Suffering. Dying. Dealing with unimaginable tragedies at every turn. Staring into the dark abyss. Looking for answers. Reaching to skies, worried about the flames of Hell.
Folks asking, wondering, How to Live? What to believe? What is best? What is worst? What the Fuck?!
It's all pretty compelling.
You know these people. You live with people just like these people. Their problems are your problems. Their questions are your questions. We think we have progressed, evolved, and it's true, certainly our technology has branched off in so many ways, so many more toys and diversions. Lots more hurly-burly.
And there are no so many more of us. And we are crowding into each other. Connected globally 24/7. And we are burning up our beautiful little blue planet. Destroying habitats and ecosystems, and species at an alarming, accelerating rate. Pushing against the bounds of health and sanity.
So new problems, new worries, new unimaginable tragedies. But the same questions today: How to live, what to believe, what is best, what is worst, what the fuck?! The same human heart, the same human soul. The same pain, suffering, tragedy, death, uncertainty.
We want and need answers. Always asking, always searching, always praying, looking to a new day, a new way. Human.