What do you really know? How does this knowledge (or illusion of knowledge) help you or misguide you in navigating the world? On a recent podcast, The Hidden Brain, this subject is discussed in detail by the author of The Knowledge Illusion, Steven Sloman. This conversation prompted me to explore the limits of my own knowledge and to realize that perhaps admitting my own ignorance might be a way to set the stage for future endeavors.
Where to begin? Why not at the beginning in writing an imaginary origin story. There are many things I think I know. My personal history, where I’ve lived and traveled. Whom I’ve met along the way. I have records in letters, photos and artifacts that affirm this. My memory serves me well enough to give me the illusion that I know who I am. But beyond my own personal history, where did it begin before me? I have this insatiable curiosity to better understand the craziness that predated the world I inherited.
Barry Lopez, in Horizons, takes on the task of rewriting a biography of his adventures around the world that combines research and speculation about what came before us. In this writing, he sets out to explore more than historical facts; he endeavors to express his own knowledge and reflections about human existence. He describes an incredibly complex world that is constantly in flux, as humans have evolved over time. Horizons serves, I believe, as a metaphor for a visionary look at our place on the planet—it’s vastness in time and geography, the complexity of the evolution of life on the planet, and the stories about how we came to better understand our origins.
So in a very playful way, I took upon myself the task of writing “An Imaginary Origin Story”—a kind of adult children’s tale of how we came to be who we are in our shared and differing beliefs, our insatiable human urge to dominate the world, and where I stand in all of this overwhelming confusion. While the human species may be on the brink of extinction, you may despair (pessimism), you may rejoice (nihilism) our you may accept (stoicism) that it’s been an incredible run. In short, it’s celebrating the human imagination and our ability to believe in a reality other than what is.