bill bryson, family
induced by bill bryson’s “a short history of nearly everything”:
we, as humans are the only animals on the planet who know they are animals. we have more capability to change the planet than any other animal that has ever lived, and for some reason we insist on killing one another in large numbers, and forcing others to suffer. as if peaceful life were not itself hard enough. perhaps the great tragedy (and, i think, simultaneously the great hope) in all this is that we are all related. closely. the differerence between you and any other person is expressed in hundreths of percents. we are all, quite literally, family. the next time you’re on a somewhat crowded street corner, view all the people around you as cousins you don’t see very often. i actually managed this for the first time this afternoon, and it helps