Monday, March 14, 2005

Wisdom from Starbucks

1.6 million years ago a youth died in Africa. His body was swept into a swamp. In 1984 his bones were painstakingly excavated to reveal a species on the brink of becoming human. All people on earth have one thing in common. We share a single African ancestor; the same as this young boy.
--Dr. Louise Leakey, Paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.

It's amazing when you think about where we all came from and how it's one big interconnected planet. How do we lose our heritage? Why does no one write stuff down? Will this, too, be forgotten?

The picture I posted a while ago of my great grandfather Dewey Christine is nothing but a picture to me, unfortunately. I want to feel more. I want to know just who that guy was, what he dreamt of and thought of. Did he have my same problem of a short temper and my compulsion for procrastination? I tell stories about my father to my kids but even I don't know the inner heart of my father. Then that begs the question: why don't we ask?

If we all share a common heritage, why do we forget it generation after generation? If we could remember, would that make some of the world's ills disappear?

No comments: