Sapiens

 

Lets start the first book discussion series with a book I just recently finished reading - Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens! I actually just recently discovered Yuval from his interview with James Corden on the late late show a few months ago. I did a Google search on him and Sapiens was the first result that appeared. I read some of the reviews and synopsis and wow I told myself I have to read this book.

I bought it a month ago when there's a nice offer from Books and Beyond here via Tokopedia haha. It's his 3 bundles at a discount so that's a good deal I guess. Books are not cheap here, sadly.

And wow this books is really something. It's hard to put it down haha. As I was reading the book I really look forward to the time I will read it at night. I find this book particularly wonderful because I'm someone who's always intrigued by time. I'm always fascinated with life before civilisation. Like how was earth before there were countries? How was earth before there were religions? And so on. And this book has all the answers haha. It also explains more than that - how we get here!

I'm not going into detail about the book cause it's really a lot to discuss. But it's fascinating to learn how we, Homo Sapiens, got united over the past thousands of years, to where we are now. The three things that unite us (or shape the world, as today) are money, empires and religion. And how all these three are linked. There are a lot of a-ha moments as I was reading the book and it's so good.

I particularly like how Yuval explains the fallacies of whatever we think to be "true" and "normal" in today's world. Why and how humans create rules and laws that... When you look back and think deeply, don't make sense. From sexuality, gender roles, economics and down to the topic of happiness. Reading this book makes me kind of worried of the world today, but it gives me some comfort too.

Anyway I really recommend everyone to read it. It will blow your mind! Alrighty I'm going to end this discussion with the last 2 paragraphs of the book. Which really left an impact on me.

Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys, to steamships to space shuttles – but nobody knows where we’re going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction. Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want? [] Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind