The Story I Stumbled Into

As a child it seems I had a wide-ranging interest in things that had mostly gone before me. The history of things. I found it hard to narrow my interests. Everything I experienced seemed only to beg the next question. As a young boy I flipped through photos in the National Geographic magazines, amazed at the variety of people and cultures. People living in worlds so completely different from mine. People whose dress, whose customs, whose mannerisms, and traditions were completely different from my own. I knew they were humans. And I was a human. But that only gave rise to the question of what is it then, to be human? So many puzzles. And even at this very moment I feel questions circling about in my mind. I am so curious right now about the way my fingers are making words appear on my computer screen. It seems so easy. As though I am on auto-pilot. The words just come out, whether spoken or written. I read what I am writing, and it is as though the words come from somewhere else inside me. I don't think and then write, or speak. It all just comes out of it's own will. I know it's my own will, but I am amazed at how smoothly words arrange into sentences and texts right here in front of my busy fingers. In conversation with another person it seems clear in the rapid-fire exchange of words, that neither of us are pausing to form the words said. They just spill out into the air between us like anxious dancers converging on a ballroom floor. And even as I write I have to pause to read what it is I have just written. It is often surprising to see what I said while my fingers were merely tapping on keys.

For years as a young man, I travelled a lot. Everywhere I went, everything I saw, provoked questions. So libraries were one of my favorite haunts. Big houses full of answers and the questions they provoke. Is it the mysterious that creates the longing to know? Or is it our knowing that leads us to the mysterious? I could live in a library quite happily poring over the vast history of man. Beliefs. Artifacts. Legacies. Answers. Questions.

One year, in my travels, I arrived in Kunda in northern Estonia. I stopped along a narrow street at an old cafe for something to eat. And it was there that I met an old man sitting alone sipping a soup and poring over some hand-written papers. He gestured kindly for me to sit with him. I watched him scribbling things on the papers in front of him, and asked him what he was writing about. He handed me several pages, but of course I had no understanding of the language the text was written in. He smiled knowingly at me, and then spoke in perfect English. "I write about the life before history. About what makes history possible. Pre-history, if you will." I nodded, but was not sure really what that meant. "Would you like for me to read for you?" he said. I nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, please." He took the pages of scrawled words back and began to read in a voice that itself sounded from long ago. His bony forefinger traced each word as he spoke it. This is the story he read to me:

Regarding the Origins of Wineah.
" Aragala and Wineah stumbled hand-in-hand through the swampland toward a dying sun. Driven by fear and the sound of wild dogs in the dense dark woods behind them. Wineah dropped to her knees in the black muck sobbing. Aragala knelt down and embraced her. "Aragala will take Wineah away", the god within him said to her through Aragala's frantic lips. The god entered Wineah and formed words in her mouth. "Wineah will go with Aragala." They were but two of many who were fleeing from the sorcerers. The ones who said that their words came from their own heads and not from the gods. The ones who proclaimed that there were no gods speaking through them or anyone else. The ones who said that words came from a being called The Self. Neither Aragala nor Wineah knew of such a thing within them. They knew only of divinations that directed their every step. For them, there were no thoughts, nor a self that owned them.

Their gods did, in fact deliver them from the people of The Self. And for many years they banded together with the others who had defected. Over time, however, their numbers dwindled. Their children left the encampments in great numbers on quests to find The Self. Aragala prevailed as a leader among the defected, his hallucinated divinations kept the band together over several decades. In the end, as he lay dying, the gods spoke through his mouth to the voice that called his name. "Aragala asks, 'Who comes to his side' "? "It is I." said Wineah, kneeling down next to him. Aragala's mouth opened slowly. "Aragala asks 'Where is Wineah?' ", the god within him said. Wineah bent to kiss Aragala's feverish forehead. "It is me. I am Wineah" she said softly. With that, Aragala died never knowing himself. Wineah lived on another two decades. While there is little historical evidence of how her life played out, scholars believe Wineah was a leader among women who guided many others to self-understanding. If not literally, then at least figuratively, she is viewed as one of the pioneers of early emerging consciousness. By way of her teachings, she became a legendary ancestor of the many things we now know about ourselves. And still, to this day there are those of the lineage of Aragala, who do not move of their own volition across the face of the earth, but are directed across it by the voices of their gods."

The old man laid his papers on the table and smiled at me. His eyes were dark and riveting. "Can you afford to buy my soup today?" he asked. "Yes, of course I will buy your soup." I never knew the man's name, but of course, I will never forget him, or the story of Wineah, who witnessed the emergence of modern consciousness several thousands of years ago. And such thoughts provoke even more questions about how our minds may collectively evolve over the next thousands of years. A thought that provokes yet another question. The question of whether humanity will have disappeared from the face of the earth by then.