What an odd day I'm having

I read quite a bit of Paul Shepard's Coming Home to the Pleistocene over the long weekend.  This book is not an easy one for me to read.  The man was very erudite.  First time in awhile I've read a book with so many words I don't know.  The context from which he wrote about us is so inclusive, that my culturally conditioned mind finds veritably no avenue of escape.  There are no excuses that work.  There is no need for excuses anyway, no purpose in them, except as a futile effort to not see what I actually do see.

Today I am experiencing another set of scales having been lifted from my eyes (how many layers of scales are there!).  Today for the first time, I seem to be really seeing us as animals.  How very strange it is, too.  I see us as animals walking around in these weird disguises, striding around inside these strangely thin veneers of disguises.  How odd it is to see us all trying not to look like animals.  We walk funny.  We sit funny.  We look at each other and talk to each other in ways that don't really make sense.  We seem to be acting as though what we are doing is terribly important, when it clearly is not.

This is all pretty disquieting today.  Here I am at work.  Interacting with quite a few people, sensing this whole other scale of being which is completely, almost entirely incongruous to how we are acting.  I tend to be a very nice person (most of the time).  I err in that direction (most of the time).  I'm going to be the first one to say hello when we meet.  I will ask you how you are doing or how your day is going...and I'll really want to know, if you really want to say.  Today, it would feel more natural to simply match you gaze for gaze, simply looking at and taking you in.  Not using words unless absolutely necessary.  Letting you go with no further need, unless another need presented itself.

Too many words. We use too many words. We talk too much.  We write too much (I know, I know).  We think we are communicating...and we are.  But is it needed.  Is what we're communicating needed.  We loose ourselves in communication.  We might leave it alone a little.  What if we had an international day of silence?