“We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness.” Steven Pinker
In 1976, the Hokule’a canoe voyaged from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional navigation techniques. The captains of this 2,700-mile journey relied only on the sun, stars, wind, and waves. It showcased humanity’s capacity to pay attention and commune with the environment, noticing and skillfully responding to nature’s signals — a skill we all once possessed. In the days of old, we had to deal with immediacy and danger, and so we had to pay attention. Before formal theoretical and linguistic systems arose, we structured our understanding of the world with symbols, myths, and rites, as Mircea Eliade writes.
These pre-literary structures reflected an archaic ontology of aliveness and vitality. Myths were enacted, and provided perspective and a sense of belonging, assuring us that our lives were part of a larger cosmic web. Acting in a prescribed manner, Eliade says, is a repetition of the paradigmatic act of that type, enabling humans to emulate a celestial archetype. Your marriage is the repetition of the cosmic marriage. Your birth, a repetition of the cosmic creation. Rituals imbue the mundane with…
