Human condition

Lately I have been reading quite a few things about the Human condition. Or put differently: the condition of Mankind, as an evolved animal species on a uniquely plentiful planet.
And now, I am thinking a lot, about why are we here, and what are we supposed to do with ourselves, with our neighbours, with our world.

I think this is a discussion that will come back regularly on this blog, and I think before getting it started, I would need toset some definitions and objectives as well as some boundaries.

it's a bit late tonight, so I won't do it today, but here is some of the literature I was mentioning at the beginning of this post. Seriously, it's LIFE-CHANGING stuff!!!! Paradigm-shifting, glasses-removing (the theory of intercultural understanding and colored glasses....), thought-feeding... call it what you want, it really brings you to a whole different level of thinking.

Litterature:
"The World Without Us", by Alan Weisman. Interest of the book: what would happen to our planet, the fauna and flaura, nature in general, if humans vanished from one day to the next? That strange question starts an very documented, mind-boggling and eye-opening discussion. Looking back at what the world was before us, we see the natural evolution that we caused as an animal species, and the "artificial" evolution that we brought as we evolved into more and more complex societies.

"La vie - mode d'emploi" (Life - User's manual), by George Pérec. A French writer trying to make a style exercise comes up with an original way to give us a snapshot of parisian society around the turn of the century (from 19th to 20th). The "user's manual" describes the lives of all the inhabitants in a parisian building, in all apartments, from parties to adultery, from war crimes to art lessons, from the everyday, tiny events to the unleashing of human passion and fury.

"Apprendre à vivre" (learning to live) ,by Luc Ferry. French philosopher and former Minister for Education, his book is probably the best introduction ever to philosophy. His approach is simple, practical, and inviting to everyone. Looking at philosophy at the "doctrin of salvation without a god", he retraces the history of philosophy since it appeared in ancient times, explains the different schools, and why we went from one to another, and what is man's place in each of the main philosophical perspectives on the world, as well as in the main monotheistic religions.

Those 3 books are extremely significant to my thougth process, because they have been very easy to read (except maybe the 1st one, that sometimes gets dry, though alwyas very insightful), and totally changed my paradigms on the topics they adressed.
You know that idea: "once you have had that thought, once you have seen things this or that way, you can never go back. you can never forget those thoughts, it has changed your perspective on the world". Those books had that effect on me.

... and a few other things about sustainable development, that got me thinking about why we need it today, and what will be the human species like, if we ever make it through our global ecological crysis.

I want to write also about the idea of "change", as I got some new persectives from "The World without us", seeing that other species have alwyas known very slow change, following the long-term rythm of geological evolution, whereas we humans have brought so much acceleration into the game that we cannot even keep up with our own thoughts and actions, and who we have become. Another day, maybe.