Older and Newer

Daily writing prompt
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?

I’ve mentioned this in different contexts, and it’s not a recent learning, but one that has led to significant personal reassessments. After reading Sapiens, by Juval Noah Harari, my view of religious faith changed. A certain doubt took hold. I suppose one could say that it was a mistake for me to pick up the book in the first place, but it was there to read and I had heard good things about it. It ended up changing my perspective on lifelong beliefs and practices. Or perhaps it was just confirming doubts I had already been harboring.

A more current revelation is that the 4th of July I’d prefer to observe has nothing to do with what’s going on in this country at the moment. The current leadership is useless and hateful and uninspiring. I am simply remembering and honoring the events and people associated with what went on in the late 1700s, when a group of leaders put their names on a remarkable document– an act of defiance that would have gotten them hanged if things had worked out differently. Such courage and conviction and imagination are nowhere to be found among this present-day hodgepodge of sycophants and pretenders.

Leave a comment