GLIMPSES OF HUMANITY’S HERITAGE

PROLOGUE

For a few millennia now humans have survived on Earth. Aside from eating, drinking, sleeping and reproducing, They have created music,  crafts and art, poems and games,Dance as well as countless religions over many long ages. I’ll present in what follows glimpses of a few of these that have enriched the lives of many in countless different ways. My hope is that these pages will divert our minds away from the horrors and the hate, climate threats and politics that crowd the internet and news channels thus ruining our lives

My goal is not to present a detailed or exhaustive story of our Humanity’s long rich, and colorful heritage, but to give a bird’s eye view of some of our legacies.

We humans as a species have thrived for millennia  on this planet which we now describe as blue.  As far as we know, this earth is a speck in the vast space replete with stars and planets, satellites, comets, and dust in galaxies stupendous that are whirling on and on in a silent  inert void.

In many major matters  we are not much different from countless other creatures that live and die here below.

But we’ve also been doing lots of things interesting:We have created music, mathematics, religions,crafts, arts, poetry,  plays, science, technology and more.

We laugh and cry; we love, and hate,we pray to gods and celebrate.  We have hated, we have quarreled and we have waged ruthless wars.

Most grievously, we have been slowly, if unknowingly,defiling the land, water, and air  that we so direly need to survive on Planet Earth, our only home in the vast expanse.  

In this phase of history which some think may well be the last, chance enabled some of us to experience many good things during what seems to many to have surely been the best of times in our colorful, though sometime dreadful  history.In my more mobile years I had traveled far and wide,

Enjoyed great art and  music from many cultures,

studied science, philosophy, history, literatures,

And experienced religions,

Of more than one tradition.

What I now propose to do in this ninth decade of life

Is to bring back to my mind some things that have enriched me.

I offer my memories of some of the truly great minds

that have left their thoughts behind.

What follows will thus be glimpses of thoughts and deeds

of the endangered species that have greatly enriched me.

These will recall for us  the richness our culture is, and of how grand  we have sometimes or often been.

This review might inspire one to think of human beings of whatever  race or creed of whatever skin or eye color,as one’s own kith and kin with whom one will want to live in trust, peace, and harmony.