From Sapiens II

It's taken about two months to finally finish this book. I think it's so interesting and important to read. There's a lot to take in and a lot more to explain. What I loved in particular was the afterword at the end. Here it is.

From Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.

Unfortunately, the sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered our surroundings, increased good production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world? Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of the individual sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

In the last few decades we have at least made some real progress as far as the human condition is concerned, with the reduction of famine, plague and war. Yet the situation of other animals is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, and the improvement in the lot of humanity is too recent and fragile to be certain of.

Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.

Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?

Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada

This past weekend, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Toronto re-opened. It's been a while since MOCCA closed its door on Queen Street West back in 2015. For its opening weekend, admission was free and it was crowded. Lots of kids running around, particularly on the first floor where Andreas Angelidakis's DEMOS installation lets the audience play and move the colourful foam blocks. 

Housed in the former Tower Automotive Building, the new site is beautiful and fits so well with what MOCA has done and continues to do now. The space is a true dream with the concrete beams and unfinished, industrial vibes. 

The exhibits are not underwhelming either. From addressing highly relevant social issues, to exploring disagreement and the anxiety we feel towards disagreement, to giving a glance of the resident artists' spaces, MOCA's opening weekend was great. Here's a look at my Saturday there.

The first two photos are pulled from MOCA's website. The rest are my own. 

Room Update

Saying goodbye

Dated August 8th

I'm seeing Will tomorrow - nearly a year since we dated and broke up. I'm not really sure what to expect. I'm not really sure what I want. I don't know what my ideal is. I don't know if I have an ideal situation in this case. He's leaving. There's a high likelihood that I may never see him again. I'm sure he'll be back in Toronto but things as they stand now, I'll never be part of his life again. That thought haunts me even close to a year since we broke up. It's hard not being able to share any part of my life or his life. Even in conversation. It feels cold and mean.

I'll acknowledge how weird it is that I reached out and asked to see him. It'll acknowledge that I'm surprised he agreed to see me at all. But I'm glad. I'll tell him my fear. How I am uncomfortable with the parallels between a breakup and death. It is never not weird to me. Someone I spoke to every day, one day disappears from my life. We don't acknowledge the other person's existence, and that is something I'm not OK with. I'll ask why he agreed to see me. Why he bothered to give me an hour at all.

I want to tell Will that I miss him. I don't know and I don't think I miss dating him. I think a year has changed those feelings. I don't feel the same way as I did. I don't feel pangs of hurt or even anger anymore. I miss him though. I miss talking to him. I miss sharing parts of my life with him and hearing about his. I miss hanging out with him. I want to tell him that maybe it's a strange request but I want to be friends. I wish we can get to a place where one day if he's in town or for whatever reason, I'm in his town, we can grab a drink and trade life updates. I want us to be happy for each other. I want us to be friends because I think he's a really good person. Maybe the nicest guy I've dated. I would really like for us to be friends and that's why I asked to see him. He's a good person, and it would suck to completely lose him from my life without trying at all to salvage our relationship.

From another month earlier: 
I hate losing parts of my life like in a breakup. It feels cruel. It feels confusing how someone is in your life and then they are not. It feels unnatural to me. I don't want to lose you, Will. For the first few months, I just missed having someone to talk to. I missed talking to you. I missed hanging out with you. I didn't just miss dating you. I missed you. I missed having you in my life. You were good even if/ even though you haven't figured everything out yet. I haven't either.

I want to tell him what's happened in my life in the year that we've been apart. I want to tell him it's really been a struggle with work and school. Everything was constant and I felt constantly overwhelmed. I didn't know how to exist. I wasn't really, truth be told. I was hanging by a thread for a lot of it. But I made it. I made new friends. I learned more about myself. It was one of the first real challenges I put myself through. It challenged my sense of self. After so long (nearly a year), I finally made it. I start my internship next Monday.

I want to ask him about his life. How has his life been in the past year? How happy or sad or conflicted was he about leaving his job? How excited is he about starting his new life? I want to wish him well. I want to tell him that I hope he's able to change the world for the better. The world needs it, and I think the guy that I met and dated really wants to help the world too. I want to wish him the best life, the best grades, the best experience. I want him to tell me all about it the next time I see him, and there will be a next time because we will stay friends.

I hope tomorrow goes well. I hope I'm able to tell him all of these things. I hope I don't cry or feel panicked. I hope I still feel safe with him. I hope when we leave, we can give each other a big hug and well wishes. I hope we stay friends. I hope tomorrow is not the last time I ever see him. I really hope that reaching out to him won't prove to be a bad idea. I hope that we can be honest and vulnerable with each other. I hope that if I lay my heart out on the line, Will won't hate me for making him deal with this again. I hope tomorrow goes well. I hope we can stay friends. I'd really like that.