‘So maybe the thing to teach isn’t a skill but a spirit.’ — James Somers
November has gone fast. Too fast.
We are still recalling some great trips and unforgettable memories we had in the last weeks while preparing at the same time for the ones to come in the following months. With everything happening at the moment, I have struggled to keep up with the consistency of posting.
And the year is about to come to an end.
This month I have been reading a couple of books in my mother tongue: La vida contada por un sapiens a un neandertal (Life As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal) and its sequel, La muerte contada por un sapiens a un neandertal (Death As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal). Co-written by Juan José Millás, a brilliant curious mind, and author, and his to-become-friend the paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga.
The books are a conversation on human life and our evolution throughout millennia, combining Millas’ magical realism with Arsuaga’s scientific approach. I couldn’t recommend these books more (I think they are currently writing a third one!). In them, we learn about ourselves as a species, we imagine as humans:
En los mamÃferos, salvo excepciones, es asÃ. Para ellos el mundo es quÃmica, pura quÃmica. Moléculas. Nosotros, en cambio, como el resto de los primates, nos representamos el mundo en forma de imágenes. Literalmente, imaginamos. (Literalmente, imaginamos. ¡Qué bueno! Tomo nota.) — Millás and Arsuaga
Literally, we imagine.
That’s a worthy spirit to teach: the spirit of imagination. I came across that other quote at the beginning of the post recently in an article in the New Yorker.
These days all social media is filling up with fear and reverence to the emerging AI platforms and technologies. That quote brought me to the ground - we are still humans. We are more than just skills or technical ability. We dream, we imagine.
I am still dreaming of recent trips while imagining the about-to-come ones. The year is coming to an end and it’s still raining too much here in Auckland. But some days, a gorgeous Kiwi summer.
And the people. Always the people.
Happy reading! 📚✨
Ana
📚 What I’m reading in November 2023:
Life As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal by Juan José Millás and Juan Luis Arsuaga.
Death As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal by Juan José Millás and Juan Luis Arsuaga.
The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook by Alan Lee.