NATHANOLOGY
Strange Humankind - An Ecological History of Humanity
Conceived and commissioned by Save the Humans (@savethehumans.us).
Lyrics:
Many and strange are the things of this world,
But nothings as strange, or quite as absurd
As you and I — Humankind —
You might have heard: We’re kind of the worst.
Is the title deserved? — Human Beings:
It’s a quarter million years since we came on the scene;
In the past 300, we made some machines
And began a new age — the Anthropocene.
…Now just how extreme do I have to be
To have a whole planet age that’s named after me?
Anthropos — human — it’s Greek — I agree:
We changed the whole thing by quite a degree…
Celsius. — See? — It’s kind of intense —
We don’t always make ecological sense:
Cuz the things we invent, for survival success,
May, in the end, just lead to our deaths!
…Yes. … But for now we’re alive,
And while we’re all here, we may as well ask why —
And how’d we change so much, in so little time —
The history of Strange Humankind.
We’ve been around 300 thou’,
And it all started out au naturale —
No horse, no plough; no slave, no master —
That’s fire, Wow! — we hunted, and gathered.
But nearer to now — 12 millenia tops —
Just a little while relative to how long we’ve walked
Upon this rock — someone stopped and said Let’s plant crops!
And settle in a place, make bread and tend flocks.
Bet — why not? But in the course of time,
As the hunter-gatherer became the grower of the vine,
It brought about changes in their hearts and minds:
Your farm’s there; this farm’s mine.
Darn — fine. Don’t let it get your goose —
They started owning animals — and ownership and use
Came to dominate a consciousness that used to keep it loose:
For as one lives, so is one’s truth.
We changed, we adapted —
Our numbers increasing,
Our Feeling gave way
To Thinking and Reasoning.
People of taste — eating with seasoning,
Instead of just eating whatever the season brings.
I sing how the shift began,
As they planted grains in the shifting sand,
As the power-grip shifted throughout the lands
From animal to human, and from woman to man,
From family to clan — and what slipped through the cracks
As the way got paved, was the way to get back
From the fictions we made to the natural fact
Of the Here and the Now. — We became abstract.
…That’s that.
Home on the range:
The world was ours,
But the world was changed.
And the things of this world
Became things of exchange,
And the Earth and the Self
Which were one,
Were estranged.
Ah yes. Humans will be humans —
Dust unto dust to industrial revolution.
The age of mass production and accelerated movement —
And it never really ended, cuz we’re kinda still doin it.
Throw this one a way, buy myself a new one —
Throw myself away — my self is such a nuisance —
Find myself a way to disappear into my room and
If I need to know what life is like I’ll stay at home and google it.
And true, we’ve made progress,
And awesome hits,
And the laptop software I wrought this with —
But we also made an big atomic bomb that hit,
And for all time altered all of this.
The radiation remains,
And in our blood and our brains
Are all the particles of polythene in hydrocarbon chains
From our plastic bags —
And so it’s hardly strange
We made a problem as large
As climate change.
Ahhh, homo sapiens —
One part progress, one part sloppiness.
I don’t want to descend into soppiness,
But sometimes I feel sorry for all of us.
Imagine the scene,
Ecstatically green —
The age when humanity gathers its dream into action — and seeing
The rational being
Reconnected at last, with a planet that’s clean.
This means that we’re not the worst:
Your actions do matter,
The plan is not cursed –
Integrate the new with the way we lived first,
And celebrate the work:
Save the Humans of the Earth
It isn’t just words
Or an abstract ‘movement’ –
It’s a fact, and a truth
That if everyone is doin’ what
That can where they’re at,
Well then that’s a revolution:
A radical reunion of the planet and the human.
… So yes it is strange,
Being this animal, having this brain –
And yet we can change — and may redefine
Just what it is to be human: kind.
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