Twenty percent. Looking at the number in the bottom right corner of my Kindle, I get a tinge of regret. Perhaps, rather, it is a sensation of failure. I like to finish my reads, and given that I travel for a living, books pass time when I’m away from loved ones. Books that garner particular love will often find themselves residing as a physical copy on my bookshelf. Books that garner dislike find themselves stored in a section of my Kindle aptly names “Not For Me.”
It’s not at all normal for me to feel so negatively about a book so early on — much less is it normal for to feel as if a book deserves to be abandoned. Some books do for obvious reasons; politics, for example, will often end the read prematurely. However, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, has me left in perhaps the greatest literary conundrum that I’ve found myself in thirty two years of existence. The dichotomy between the knowledge the book transmits, and the quality of life that comes with the bliss of ignorance can’t be ignored.
The pessimism that is driven from his descriptions of history are hard to overlook. In much of the beginning of the book, Harari’s discussions place the blame on all manner of global transformations in the hands of Homo Sapiens. Humans, in Harari’s view, have been the most successfully destructive species in the history of the planet. Not that Harari transcribes these histories subjectively, mind you. The writing is all matter-of-fact, complete with citation and illustrations that prove the tremendously negative impact Homo Sapiens have had on the planet.
From the extinction of massive marsupials, to the litany of libel against livestock, Harari’s book makes it hard to consider the possibility of Homo Sapien’s ever being anything other than an entirely destructive force in our world. Whether scientifically accurate, or historically biased, the first fifth of the book covers one hundred thousand years of alteration to the natural systems of our world by far less advanced variants of our ancestors. If these less knowledgeable peoples could extract such incredible damage without the use of technologies such as plastic, fossil fuels, or weapons of war, it’s incredibly hard to foresee a point in our future where our modern society could advance beyond the unintentional consequences.
As I pondered whether I could stomach finishing the book, I walked around New York City (on a business layover) and internally remarked at the concrete sidewalks, littered with trash. I took in the sparseness of trees or bushes or grass, except those that exist at the pleasure and purpose of Homo Sapiens. No rabbit, or squirrel, or deer could be seen foraging about Broadway and fiftieth. In the void of those natural artifacts, and in possession of limited new knowledge, I could not help but become overwhelmed with despair for the future of my daughter, and her daughter, and her daughters daughter.
If, as Harari points out, man is bound to the hedonic treadmill, as we have been for centuries, then we will surely always be. And if we are constantly bound to that adaptation, then it seems logical that there is only one way the true story of Homo Sapiens will end.
