A heady exploration of our collective previous, future, and the pathways in between, The Ape Who Gazed Past: A forgotten story of humanity guided by what has not but occurred by Fernando Reich is an illuminating poetic reflection on humanity’s potential.

Penned by a tech veteran fascinated with quantum connections and species consciousness, it is a remarkably accessible and welcoming assortment of concepts on the place we got here from, the place we’re headed, and the way we’re really going to get there. From strolling upright and discovering the operate of fireplace to growing language and sharpening the instruments that will construct our future, this thought-provoking examination of humanity is an anthropology, historical past, and philosophy lesson rolled into one.

The second a part of this e book takes readers by means of the Agricultural Revolution, the written phrase, the creation of God, and the beginning of science, with every poem constructing cumulatively on the final, crafting a basis for who we’re. The third and fourth sections tackle humanity’s evolution into self-awareness and significant thought, together with the overwhelming energy of expertise and perpetual emergence of a fated future that has at all times been ready.

One in all Reich’s central concepts is that people will not be solely motivated or impressed by the previous, but additionally drawn ahead and invited by the long run, as if the ever-unfolding current is remembering us, and we’re rising to fulfill it. The poet’s ardour for quantum entanglement evokes the sort of play with nebulous definitions of time and area, in addition to the pliability of mortality and the magnificent risk inside a single lifetime.

Whereas discussions of cosmic paradoxes and non-Newtonian physics have the potential to get technical and lumbering, Reich leans into the metaphysical components of those ideas, preserving the language easy and craftily distilling complicated concepts. At occasions, the adage-style writing may be obscure, talking extra in riddles than strict logic, however the writing nonetheless manages to instill the feeling of delivered knowledge. Dabbling in realms of determinism, future, and the inevitability of our changing into, the content material is ethically curious and philosophically versatile, albeit confident in its argument.

On the technical facet, there are a couple of dangerous habits that emerge within the writing – for instance, Reich tends to make use of a -/+ framework to dramatize an announcement, which loses affect over time, e.g., “Maybe it wasn’t necessity. Maybe it was imaginative and prescient.” The motif of interrupting a descriptive phrase with extra specificity can also be overused: “There’s a human gesture—deep, trembling—that whispers…” No matter every phrase’s originality, the rhythm can really feel repetitive, regardless of how sage the e book’s recommendation. The halting ideas, list-leaning model, and line breaks really feel extra like prose reduce into verse, somewhat than inventive enjambment, which might make these items come throughout as articulate weblog musings, somewhat than a set of genre-blurring poetry.

Poets have an apparent broad license for content material, however these items typically learn as quick streams of thought, or summary essays, and will use extra poetic selection. That stated, each piece is punctuated by memorable traces and cliffhanger conclusions, and the gathering general offers wealthy meals for thought not discovered in lots of works of poetry.

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