SchindlersWord

the origin of humanity

you

If you’ve been told that in the beginning is the year 0, you’ve been SHAMMED

I’m not kidding.

Nor am I one to make a new opinion:

If you’ve been told in the beginning is 0 (zero), you’ve been SHAMMED.

In case you wonder what’s the opposite of SHAMMED, well, it’s genuine.

If you’re interested in genuine, and in how you and your family and friends have been shammed for the past 2023 years with no end in sight, then read on.

In the beginning

As you can see in broad daylight, I’m not one to make up new opinions.

There are no two ways about it.

In the beginning is the word

That includes the beginning of SHAMMED, which is a word — hence couldn’t be anything else if it tried — or we wouldn’t be here talking about you, shammed and genuine.

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, everything you have a word for doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

Whether that’s told, SHAMMED, or genuine doesn’t make a difference.

If you have a word for it, it’s a word.

Of that you can be sure: You can bet your life on it.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t make any difference.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world, at the risk of repeating myself…

  • In the beginning is the word.
  • In the beginning of every word is the word.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.

In broad brush strokes

  • “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself.” – Patrick Rothfuss
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • “Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • The appearance of words revolutionized evolution.
  • Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.
  • The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words.
  • Words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
  • Words are what the word-users respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • Everything you know is a word.
  • Words do not only change everything you have a word for, they create it.
  • Words don’t describe the world, they describe how we see it.
  • Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
  • Words are the limits of your world. Once you see that, you’re limitless.
  • Words aren’t taught at school.
  • The story of words isn’t told.*
  • Word-masters have know in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
  • Words tend to get mistaken for evidence and often get treated that way.
  • The word-users love to use their words.
  • Words can be denied only by confirming them.
  • If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
  • Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
  • Words have no meaning.

*Except here

Takeaway

There is more to it, but knowing words — what words are, do, and have — takes time.

Then it takes yet more time to know you — the most important word in the alphabet — what you are, what you do, and what you have.

Let yourself be surprised. Even better, surprise yourself.

Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.” – Bill Watterson

The surprise will be worth the time invested in the end because those two, word and you, are all it takes for the limits of your world to morph into limitless opportunities forever and a day.

Call to action

Join my waitlist to ensure you’ll be the first to be notified when my “Limitless Opportunities” course starts later this year when the harvest moon rises anew, give or take a few.

What to think of “the 1% versus the 99%” much talked about (and chances are it’s not what you think it is)

Or rather what not to think.

Because if you think the “1% versus 99%” much talked about these days to divide us, is new, you’re mistaken.

“The 1% versus the 99%” is as old as words.

To know how old words are, try imagining the time between the birth of Earth and the year 2023 in terms of 100%, instead of in years.

It might take a minute or two, to talk from experience, because the time between the two is 4.65 billion years.

Alright?

Now add to the 4.65 billion years the fact words appeared 13,750 years ago.

Then you realize that the first 99.9997% of Earth-time was not only wordless, but that it continues wordless infinitely.

Put differently, if the 4.65 billion years were a 24-hour day, words would have appeared a mere 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before midnight, that is 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before the dawn of the new day we’re in.

To put that into context, 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before midnight, the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.

The story of words and of the inventions that preceded it

The story of words and the inventions that preceded it.
  • “In the beginning is the word.” – Word-masters
  • “There is magic in every beginning.” – Hermann Hesse

The invention of brains was magic.

500,000 years later, many among us agree the brain is magic, is usually how it works.

However, nearly the same number of word-users do NOT believe this same magic equally applies to the beginning of words invented 486,250 years after the brain, 13,750 years ago exactly.

This is a surprise because Hermann Hesse, albeit much later, wrote there is magic in every beginning, so every word-user can clearly see.

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, everything you have a word for doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

Whether that’s beginning, brain, or word doesn’t matter. After all, if you have a word for it, it’s a word.

You can bank on it.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t make any difference.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world of word-users, the early word-masters — the 1% — were the first to understand the magic of words, while the 99% — the early word-users — tended to mistake their master’s magic for evidence and treat it as such.

The same happens of course today with stories, but expecting words and stories to possess magic presupposes that the two have the organs required, which works for the 99%, but the word-masters are not eager to make that mistake.

Fact is, if the word-masters couldn’t tell a word from an organ, we wouldn’t be here today.

What difference has 13,750 years made?

The 1% are still the word-masters, and the word-users are still the other 99%.

Nothing has changed, except of course the word-masters’ names. Read on.

A brief story of word-mastery

  • 13750 years ago
    When words were new, fewer than 1% of the world’s nascent word-user population, the word-masters, could read and write. The word-masters were the world’s original version of us versus them, of the 1% that could read and write, versus the 99% that couldn’t. It follows that the 1% of word-masters were the first to realize that in the beginning of every word is the word.
  • 5,000 years ago
    When writing was invented, the word-masters owned everything it took — the ink, the papyrus, the paper, the scribes, and the storytellers — to have their stories told in faraway places. The reward system at the time — gold and land the word-master said was his — made it affordable. But that is about gold, a different story entirely.
  • 585 years ago
    When Gutenberg invented the printing press, still only fewer than 8% of Europe’s word-users could read (of which even fewer could write). It follows that the printing press was originally priced with the 1% — those who could read and write — in mind. For the word-users who needed to be told —the 99% — a printing press was out of reach.
  • 156 years ago
    With the invention of the typewriter, everything changed because the typewriter transformed every word-user into a storyteller. Of course, the typewriters weren’t used just for storytelling, but also for the production of reference works such as encyclopedias, thesauruses, and dictionaries.
  • 34 years ago
    Everything changed, again, when the world wide web also known as the internet was invented. The world wide web gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before. And because Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft — also known as Big Tech — realized this first, they are now the new word-masters, the new 1%, not because they have words, but because they have words about you.

Takeaway

All the truths add up to one big lie.

The author of The Origin of Humanity, I could be wrong.

However, of this you can be sure:

How the word-masters treat you is their power.

But how you respond is all up to you.

No other word-user can do it for you.

2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential

By In history, you

1. Are you tired of feeling limited by your own beliefs?

2. Do you want to break free from self-imposed limitations and achieve your goals?

If that’s you, then these are 2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential.

Join my waitlist to discover how.

If not now, then when?

Free

My program, Limitless Opportunity, is free (no credit card required).

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t cost anything.

On the contrary, it cost me years of work to make it what it is: An actionable guide to regain control over your life.

I will teach you how to cultivate a growth mindset so you can approach the obstacles from where you are to where you will be with confidence and resilience.

Develop the skills and mindset you need to overcome the limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

Achieve your dreams no matter how big or small they may be.

Sign up

What I’m talking about is a course that will be released in the fall, that will help you understand:

  • How it all began (let you be surprised).
  • How you began (surprise yourself).
  • How to look at words as an extra-terrestrial would.
  • Be the conductor of your life (versus having it conducted for you).
  • Change only how you want to change, at your own chosen speed.
  • Move forward with certainty in an uncertain world.
  • Know the truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Going for anything less, why bother?

Call to action

Getting there won’t be a walk in the park. On the upside, the rest is technique.

But don’t wait.

Fall will be here before you know it.

Click here to join the waitlist for Limitless Opportunity now.

PS.

Beat Schindler — author of The Origin of Humanity, business coach, life coach, and founder of Limitless Opportunity

I help myself and other creative mission-driven people free themselves and cultivate lives on their own terms.

Mission-driven people make more and give more.

An Infinite Possibilities(Mike Dooley)-certified trainer, I love catching people doing things right and learning more about them.

I look at words as an extra-terrestrial would, hence have decided on limitless opportunities ever since.

2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential

1. Are you tired of feeling limited by your own beliefs?

2. Do you want to break free from self-imposed limitations and achieve your goals?

If that’s you, then these are 2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential.

Join my waitlist to discover how.

If not now, then when?

Free

My program, Limitless Opportunity, is free (no credit card required).

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t cost anything.

On the contrary, it cost me years of work to make it what it is: An actionable guide to regain control over your life.

I will teach you how to cultivate a growth mindset so you can approach the obstacles from where you are to where you will be with confidence and resilience.

Develop the skills and mindset you need to overcome the limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

Achieve your dreams no matter how big or small they may be.

Sign up

What I’m talking about is a course that will be released in the fall, that will help you understand:

  • How it all began (let you be surprised).
  • How you began (surprise yourself).
  • How to look at words as an extra-terrestrial would.
  • Be the conductor of your life (versus having it conducted for you).
  • Change only how you want to change, at your own chosen speed.
  • Move forward with certainty in an uncertain world.
  • Know the truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Going for anything less, why bother?

Call to action

Getting there won’t be a walk in the park. On the upside, the rest is technique.

But don’t wait.

Fall will be here before you know it.

Click here to join the waitlist for Limitless Opportunity now.

PS.

Beat Schindler — author of The Origin of Humanity, business coach, life coach, and founder of Limitless Opportunity

I help myself and other creative mission-driven people free themselves and cultivate lives on their own terms.

Mission-driven people make more and give more.

An Infinite Possibilities(Mike Dooley)-certified trainer, I love catching people doing things right and learning more about them.

I look at words as an extra-terrestrial would, hence have decided on limitless opportunities ever since.

Are you making this common mistake with your identity?

The random things we do daily often happen without intent.

By the time you realize that they’ve become habits, they have already become part of what you identify with and, therefore, of your decisions how to invest your time and energy.

If that is so, that would be a BIG mistake…that is easy to stop.

All it takes is to add intent to these daily random habits. The instant you do that, you give yourselves the chance to rewrite and rewire your attitudes.

But to begin, you first need to see it.

If you’re anything like the rest of us, that means that in your teenage years you believed the stories told all over the world.

I was like the rest of us myself, hence had no clue whether a story genuinely happened or not doesn’t matter a Dickie bird, that the only thing that matters is that the story is believed.

Well, the least I can say is the times have changed and that much water has gone under the bridge. But what’s told about stories is still the same. Most word-users still don’t have a clue.

‎”Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato (2,500 years ago)
“When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon (40 years ago)

That makes you wonder who’s teaching the storytellers, doesn’t it?

Well, the story not told is…

Who are you?

According to the stories told, you’re probably making everybody else’s mistake. As we speak, you probably link your identity to…

  • Your name
  • Your looks
  • Your religion
  • Your nationality
  • Your family
  • Your work
  • Your possessions
  • Your reputation
  • Your status (“I’m a teenager”, “I’m retired”, “I’m ______)
  • Your beliefs

…to name a few.

If you do, that guarantees that your identiy will change as time goes by.

It also ensures that your identity is at risk to get stolen. And that you won’t be pleased when that happens.

I’m not one to make up new opinions…

You are, do, and have.

… all I’m saying is what you ARE, what you DO, and what you HAVE are different stories altogether.

Am also saying that if you’re looking for an identity that lasts forever and a day…

  • Forget what you DO
  • Forget what you HAVE

…for these things shall change as time goes by.

To give yourself an identity that will last forever, stick to what you ARE.

You ARE 70% water, and 30% fire-air-earth.

The percentages will vary (slightly) between birth and death, but that’s nothing to worry about.

The water, fire, air, and earth that you are made of, are the same elements that the Earth is made of.

How’s that for consistency.

I’m not saying that changes everything. All I’m saying is it will make a BIG difference.

But that’s not all.

Long before you even showed up, these four elements of fire, air, earth, and water have single-handedly, as it were, invented the cells, the plants, the animals, the eyes, the brains, the words, and the word-users from scratch.

Our common ancestor and you are simply the most recent product of what the fire, air, earth and water have invented from scratch, also know as evolution.

Knowing your roots is as good as having them.

Knowing you’re 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth gives you an identity you will never forget.

You will never have an identity crisis again.

I asked an elderly person once what it was like to know that the largest chunk of her life was most likely now behind her. To my surprise, she responded that she had been the same age since her birth, and that the 70 % of water she is made of had always been fresh. She always wondered when she’d get old. She also said her body was ageing and her abilities grew duller as time went on, but the fire, air, earth and water inside never got tired. She changed, but she never grew old.

The next time you meet somebody older, just know they’re made of the same elements as you.

How does it feel being re-minded?

A world of difference

Before I knew that I’m 70% water and 30% fire, air, and earth, I used to change my identity like I changed my underwear.

Now I could be me or I could be an LGBTQIA+, but I and my identity would remain 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth just the same

The sun, the moon, and the stars change genders depending on where you are.

Yet the children get low grades at school for being confused about theirs.

It is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius (2,400 years ago)

PS.

You may still have to look up your passport, race, or religion, but to the need to know your identity will be a thing of the past. Imagine the time and energy free for the things that matter.

Did you know that open heart surgery can be a curse and blessing? At the same time?

Wisdom I wish I’d known earlier

When a year ago I fainted, not for the first time, I ignored that open heart surgery can be both a blessing and curse at the same time.

Sure, there is nothing new about it. I had fainted twice before, back in my teenage years, when I banged my helmetless head against an ice rink and pool floor, but a year ago was my third faint and this time it was serious.

As a teenager, I used to believe what I was told. That means I believed even such bullshit as it makes a difference whether people are awake or asleep. But much water has gone under the bridge since, with lots of other stuff too.

Things have changed and I’m younger than that now.

Let me begin at the beginning

A year ago, I was in the process of doing research for my book, THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, when all of a sudden, while boiling water for my afternoon tea, I fainted in my kitchen for no apparent reason, smartphone in hand, slow enough to call the paramedics who arrived quickly, picked me up sack of potatoes-like, took me in a special chair down my three flights of stairs to the waiting ambulance, laid me flat on a stretcher, which is the last event I remember, for transport to the nearby hospital, which I don’t remember at all for by then I had fainted completely.

As luck would have it, lucky me lives in Switzerland, a country where everything is nearby. Be it as it may, nearby wasn’t of much help because it would be four weeks anyway, before I re-membered anything again at all.

While in a state of faint, the 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth — that I’m made of, like you and everybody else — shut down. Or at least that’s how it felt. You don’t feel a thing. You also don’t use words to describe it. Only bystanders can see it and later tell you all about it.

After regaining the senses of my 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth, I re-membered only what I could not communicate to bystanders without blowing their minds and socks off which became quite clear rather quickly.

So I shut up and reduced myself to being told by a doctor, or was it maybe a nurse? that I had in the meantime survived the transport by ambulance to the nearby hospital, by ‘copter to the University hospital, the several hours of open-heart surgery, and the three weeks in a coma, to finally wake up in an intensive care unit that my sister tells me I’m mistaking for my apartment.

The mix of doctors and nurses also tell me that by the end of the week I’d take a taxi to spend my next 3 months at a nearby rehab clinic with fabulous views of the snowcapped Alps illuminated by the sun twice daily like Holly would.

None of it made any sense. They could as well have told me snowflakes keep falling on my head when Mother Frost beats her bedding.

Without further ado, let’s get back to me, the patient.

I remember more from quotes than from fairy tales. Call me Stupendous Quote Man if you must, but among the ones in plain view of my third eye is the following:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Why am I telling you this?

It’s nothing, respectively it’s nothing but an attempt to let you partake in wisdom I wish I’d known earlier, namely that open heart surgery can be a curse and a blessing at the same time, because that wisdom might come in handy sooner or later.

The difference between miracle, blessing, and curse depends on how you look at it. And it’s not just about Albert Einstein of course. My handpicked quotes collection stands at 4,411 and counting, and includes the following.

That’s right, Polo Hofer, too, is right:

“You know the end is near when the idiot killer shows up.”

Only people who’ve never been idiots in all their life shall escape, and I’d be a complete idiot to take myself out of it.

That’s right, Buddha is right, too:

“The trouble is, you think you have time.”

No-one begins and ends life alive. If you think time is granted or that it’s all up to you, you’ll be in trouble before you know it.

Open heart surgery has granted me the wisdom to know that I’m mortal. Prior to that, I had the time to live till 2072. Now I know that without the doctors and nurses I wouldn’t have the time to watch my family, friends, and the world grow older and know much more than I ever will, nor would I have witnessed Jeff Beck in concert shortly before his death and listen to his music now, as we speak, without the pain of his absence while wondering who’s next.

Many of my inspirations are my generation, hence don’t have the trouble of thinking time’s on their side. And If my generation is mortal, what does that say about you and me?

That’s right, Yogi Berra is spot on too.

“Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.”

Yogi spent his life in sports — a pro baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach.

If future results are predictable, you can get run over by a bus anytime, but if that’s so, then you know you’re not talking sports anymore.

That’s right, Seneca is equally right.

“Words become works.”

When you decide your words well, they will follow you like a shadow that never leaves, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And as if that weren’t enough, when you keep your word, many decisions are already made.

Finally, needless to say but I say it anyway, Marcel Marceau is right too.

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?”

‘Nough said.

Six quotes are more than what most word-users can absorb in one reading.

Because nothing happens until it is believed, you might want to read this post again, but that, my friend, is all up to you.

We don’t make choices, we make decisions.

Quotes don’t inspire because they have been written by word-users like you and me — made of 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth — but because they have been written by word-users who decide their words well, for everybody to see.

Are you trying to understand words and wanna cry?

By In history, words

Understand words is not a walk in the park.

I should know for I stumbled upon words back in 2016.

7 years and 10,000 hours of writing about words later, I’m still only just getting started.

If you’re anything like me, you must not only discover but then also accept that there is a difference between Before Words and After Words.

Before Words vs After Words

Next, you work hard to understand the difference between word and words.

Word vs Words

If you’re anything like me one more time, the hardest part by a country mile is accepting that…

  • “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating.” – Patrick Rothfuss
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

And if that weren’t enough, you must also deal with wordusers telling you without fail that trying to understand words is hopeless and forlorn.

I did it anyway.

But that’s not all.

I also wrote a book — in English — that will help you understand words beyond the shadow of a doubt.

As a special preview, the book’s introduction reads like this:

INTRODUCTION

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT, investigates and answers what everybody wants to know.

  • How did it all begin?
  • What existed before humanity?
  • Why are we here and the wordless aren’t?

Origin can be denied only by confirming it, a word. The same applies to the beginning and to humanity.

Before words, words didn’t exist for self-evident reasons. After words, the only question on the table is when did words, the beginning, and humanity happen?

Have words been with us forever, or have they arrived only when mother Earth gave birth to herself 4.65 billion years ago? Or did the words appear 542 million years ago when the eyes appeared, or maybe 42 million years later, when the invention of the eyes was followed by the invention of the brain? Or did words happen perhaps only 300 million years ago when animals of the homo type first showed up? Could it have been on a Tuesday 6026 years ago when nothing happened?

To keep you from guessing, the first (spoken-only) words are estimated to have appeared between 9500 and 18000 years ago. When exactly doesn’t matter.

The 13750 years ago used in THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) is the average between the low and the high estimates.

13750 years ago, the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.

Please feel free to estimate the exact date yourself. After all, that’s what words are for.

Much water has gone under the bridge since, with much other stuff too, some good and some bad.

The wordless remain as wordless as ever, but the wordy have climbed to the top of the food chain second to none. The self-declared crown of evolution, ready for breakfast on Mars, and with our sense of humor we can look at what has changed — the glorious, the fantastic, the absurd, and the non-sensical — and laugh about it, not sure if that’s scary or funny or how it benefits us.

Only one thing is certain beyond the shadow of a doubt. Without our sense of humor, we’d all go insane. If we haven’t already.

Everybody knows that nothing good will ever come from fighting the old. It takes a fresh perspective that makes the old obsolete.

For this and other reasons as well, THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) invites you to look at words as an alien might.

As you read my book, new landscapes will unfold that everybody knows have been there all along.

But as you will notice, the unfolding is you.

Of course, my book can offend for other reasons as well.

But let’s begin in the beginning

I wanted to write a book that gives readers hope. I believe that’s why you are here, and if we begin with what we agree on, it’s easier to understand what THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) is about.

We probably haven’t had the pleasure to meet in person yet, so let me briefly introduce myself to you.

My name is Beat Schindler. That I’m passionate about the origin of humanity is new even to me.

In my younger years, I used to believe the stories told to me by storytellers typically stronger and taller than me.

I believed not only that the world had been created, but also that I’m part of a family, community, nation, people, humanity, and brotherhood of man. On top of that, I believed I was born human and, therefore, that I’m separate from nature.

I’m not saying I was convinced, but over time I got used to it.

When I was older, in 2016, it suddenly occurred to me that humanity could be a word.

Six years and many doubters later, it turns out that humanity is indeed what can be denied only by confirming it.

Now I’m driven by what I feel and no longer see the point in tarting it up.

I’m passionate about the origin of humanity as well as about the origin of words, because the two events are identical.

If it wasn’t for words, humanity wouldn’t exist.

I no longer believe anything is separate from nature. Everything is part of the origin, including us, the word-users.

I reside in a country where writing about the origin doesn’t get me silenced, imprisoned, or cost me my life.

Everybody wished that the governments all over the world loved their children, too, but everybody also knows the state the world is in.

Words

I hear you, what in the world have words got to do with the origin of humanity?

All kinds of things are being said about words, depending on who is saying them, and what to believe is a question of character and personal preference, to each their own.

There’s nothing new about it.

The story of words

In the beginning are the wordless — fire, air, earth, water, cells, plants, animals, eyes, and brains.

Who’s telling the story doesn’t make any difference.

13750 years ago, when words arrived, though they did nothing but divide the time on Earth into the Before Words and the After Words, they also changed the world more than any other event before or since.

I think it is no exaggeration to say words are the origin of humanity.

I’m not one to make new opinions or to invent anything. Everybody knows the word is a gift we’re meant to keep.

I think it is no exaggeration to say that the word is also the origin of you.

The story of you

For without words, you doesn’t exist, and the reason we’re here and the wordless aren’t, is because we have words and the wordless haven’t.

  • “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself.” – Patrick Rothfuss
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

I agree with the above quotes 100%.

Nevertheless, in THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) I will do just that, talk of words the best I can to let you discover for yourself what words are, do, and have, how we respond to them, and what that says about us.

To produce the numbers, tables, and graphs in this book, I’ve worked with the help of the internet. I trust they will let you see what happened in liberating new ways.

Understanding words is never a question of quantity. There are always those who understand and those who don’t.

But on one thing, my friend, I give you my word.

When you change the way you look at words, the world changes.

Limits and truths

The truths and limits of your world have got nothing to do with what’s out there.

The limits and truths of your world have got everything to do with your meaning of words.

No word can have your truth for you.

There’s no candle in the window.

It’s all up to you and artificial intelligence, whatever that’s supposed to be, doesn’t help.

You

What in the world have you, of all things, got to do with words?

Well, what you can feel, hear, smell, taste, touch, or see, or if you have a word for it, or if you have another word for it, it’s a word.

For this and other reasons as well, you is also part of THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) — what you are, do, can, and have, how you respond, and what that says about you.

Philosophy

I’m a storyteller, not a philosopher, so what has philosophy, of all things, got to do with the origin of humanity?

Why?

Above marked in red, Why? is the basis of not only storytelling, but also of every philosophical pursuit.

I do read of philosophers whenever the time is right, most recently when I enrolled at the local “Journées philosophiques” earlier this year.

Among the speakers was Markus Gabriel, “a philosopher” according to Wikipedia (the world’s most-read reference work), “the thinker of the hour”, according to DIE ZEIT (over 270,000 subscribers use the digital ZEIT), and chair of epistemology and of modern- and present-day philosophy at the University of Bonn, Germany. For context only, a few of Markus Gabriel’s quotes.

  • “It would be better if man would learn to understand himself as an animal again.” 
  • “We will never know everything.”
  • “Society will always have to come to terms with man’s susceptibility to error.”
  • “We need an ethics of not knowing.”

A favorite of mine is Ludwig Wittgenstein, “considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century”, according to Wikipedia. For context only, below a few of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s quotes.

  • “All I know is what I have words for.”
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.”
  • “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.”
  • “A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”
  • “Call it a dream, it does not change anything.”
  • “What one cannot speak of, one must remain silent about.”
  • “Death is not an event in life.”
  • “If a question can be asked, then it can also be answered.” 
  • “Everything that can be thought and said at all, can be thought and said clearly.”   
  • “To say of two things that they are identical is nonsense. And to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.”
  • “I won’t say ‘See you tomorrow’ because that would be like predicting the future, and I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.”
  • “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.”

In THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT), simply look for what is useful, ignore the rest, or reach out to say hello.

Systemic change requires sharing the information.

If the information in this introduction is useful to you and maybe to others, please feel free to share it lock, stock, and barrel.

PS.

You can also listen to the book’s introduction by clicking the play button below.

PPS.

You can purchase THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) from my publisher, Books on Demand, from Amazon worldwide, or from any local book stores (on stock or by order).

Are you making this common mistake with your identity?

By In history, words, you

No matter how hard you try?

The random things we do daily often happen without intent.

By the time you realize that they’ve become habits, they have already become part of what you identify with and, therefore, of your decisions to invest your time and energy.

If that is so, that would be a BIG mistake…that is easy to stop.

All it takes is to add intent to these daily random habits. The instant you do that, you give yourselves the chance to rewrite and rewire your attitudes.

But to begin, you first need to see it.

If you’re anything like the rest of us, that means that in your teenage years you believed the stories told all over the world.

I was like the rest of us myself, hence had no clue whether a story genuinely happened or not doesn’t matter a Dickie bird, that the only thing that matters is that the story is believed.

Well, the least I can say is the times have changed and that much water has gone under the bridge. But what’s told about stories is still the same. Most word-users still don’t have a clue.

‎”Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato (2,500 years ago)
“When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon (40 years ago)

That makes you wonder who’s teaching the storytellers, doesn’t it?

Well, the story not told is…

Who are you?

According to the stories told, you’re probably making everybody else’s mistake. As we speak, you probably link your identity to…

  • Your name
  • Your looks
  • Your religion
  • Your nationality
  • Your family
  • Your work
  • Your possessions
  • Your reputation
  • Your status (“I’m a teenager”, “I’m retired”, “I’m ______)
  • Your beliefs

…to name a few.

If you do, that guarantees that your identiy will change as time goes by.

It also ensures that your identity is at risk to get stolen. And that you won’t be pleased when that happens.

I’m not one to make up new opinions…

You are, do, and have.

… all I’m saying is what you ARE, what you DO, and what you HAVE are different stories altogether.

Am also saying that if you’re looking for an identity that lasts forever and a day…

  • Forget what you DO
  • Forget what you HAVE

…for these things shall change as time goes by.

To give yourself an identity that will last forever, stick to what you ARE.

You ARE 70% water, and 30% fire-air-earth.

The percentages will vary (slightly) between birth and death, but that’s nothing to worry about.

The water, fire, air, and earth that you are made of, are the same elements that the Earth is made of.

How’s that for consistency.

I’m not saying that changes everything. All I’m saying is it will make a BIG difference.

But that’s not all.

Long before you even showed up, these four elements of fire, air, earth, and water have single-handedly, as it were, invented the cells, the plants, the animals, the eyes, the brains, the words, and the word-users from scratch.

Our common ancestor and you are simply the most recent product of what the fire, air, earth and water have invented from scratch, also know as evolution.

Knowing your roots is as good as having them.

Knowing you’re 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth gives you an identity you will never forget.

You will never have an identity crisis again.

I asked an elderly person once what it was like to know that the largest chunk of her life was most likely now behind her. To my surprise, she responded that she had been the same age since her birth, and that the 70 % of water she is made of had always been fresh. She always wondered when she’d get old. She also said her body was ageing and her abilities grew duller as time went on, but the fire, air, earth and water inside never got tired. She changed, but she never grew old.

The next time you meet somebody older, just know they’re made of the same elements as you.

How does it feel being re-minded?

A world of difference

Before I knew that I’m 70% water and 30% fire, air, and earth, I used to change my identity like I changed my underwear.

Now I could be me or I could be an LGBTQIA+, but I and my identity would remain 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth just the same

The sun, the moon, and the stars change genders depending on where you are.

Yet the children get low grades at school for being confused about theirs.

It is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius (2,400 years ago)

PS.

You may still have to look up your passport, race, or religion, but to the need to know your identity will be a thing of the past. Imagine the time and energy free for the things that matter.

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