Ishmael and the Bigger Picture

After finishing my reading of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn I felt a sort of quiet, still, disappointment at what I had received from the book. I, like many others probably, picked up the book, hoping to gain something out of it, yet left it uncompleted and lacking any real solid conclusion. I define myself as a pessimistic realist, someone who doesn't try to expect too much out of anything, but as I read this book, a small spark of "maybe something" flickered in me, and I had hoped to gain some insight into the ideas shared within the stories.

I'm sad to say that I came out of this book as apathetic as ever. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, quite the contrary, I actually really liked reading it as well as discussing it with others! I just feel like I didn't get as much out of it as I had hoped and expected.

One theme/ idea present in the book that fascinates me is the concept that we are slaves to our culture. We define humanity as having free will and not being chained down like other species to the limitations of the world. Instead, we humans have the ability to bypass evolution and shape the world to our liking, but is this really true? Does the free will we so proudly claim to have truly exist? What does freewill really mean?
Sure we have the capability to make minor decisions on a daily basis (and I suppose we can make choices that will affect our future) but does humanity really have the will to redirect its future course? Or you could argue that regardless of changing what our future course, the resulting direction was inevitably what route we as people were going to take in the first place.

I once watched a video narrated by Morgan Freeman about freewill that tackled these ideas (unfortunatly I cannot find a free version of it to reflect upon it), this video really opened my eyes to my questioning of our free will, and I was reminded of it during our discussion in class.
I think Ishmael has a positive view on humanities ability to change it's course. While Ishmael doesn't actually give a solid solution to the problem, he at the very least hints at its possibility. I personally am not quite convinced yet and would have to see the change put into motion first, but I think that regardless we'll never truly know, since again, perhaps that was the route that would have been taken in the end either way.

I also find issue in the concept of Takers and Leavers. I don't really believe that human Leavers really exist. Regardless of a "humbler" life style, humans are humans regardless, and that nature still exists within us.
Humans are humans not only because of the life we lead, but also what's inside us. We differ from animals because of our intellect and self awareness. Sure at one point in our evolutionary cycles we were like other animals, but our evolution changed us. This is not to say that we are "better" or more "civilized" than other species, we just came up the those terms and decided to call ourselves that.
But I suppose at the same time, our cultures and societies develop us as humans (mentally), and perhaps that has an impact on our views of the world. I cannot speak for anyone besides myself, but... the way I see the world goes along somewhat like this:
We exist in the world. We are humans. We live to survive and improve our condition by any means possible.
Other animals do the same.
Of course this has been simplified to the extreme and I am obviously missing so much of what the world contains, but this leads to my next point.

Ishmael frustrates me in the sense that it tries to define the world and explain it, when (at least I think) there is not real answer or perfect explanation. Just as it's ridiculous for me to define the world with a few simple phrases, how can just a book explain how the world is? Anything can be explained with a twist of a few pretty words and some logic, but the truth is far from the explanation. In fact, the truth doesn't really exist.
It's all relative to perception and I'm sure that another fantastic writer could explain things completely differently and it too would be perceived as "truth", just like the two compared books The Dust Bowl and Dust Bowl in Cronon's A Place for Stories.

But in the end, I still really enjoyed reading Ishmael regardless of my disagreements with its ideas.
I think that for me, Ishmael's true strength lies not in the ideas it portrays, but rather the inspiration to think that is gives to the reader. Whether through discussion or just thinking by ones self, I believe that trying to further understand the world, humanity, and ourselves will help lead us to a future hopefully brighter than the one we seem to be heading to.

Tools of our Technology?

Yes, I may have desires to play games, or use technology in ways that would be considered time wasting and purposeless, and yes, I may actually waste time look at cat pictures on the internet.

But at the same time, I can control my urges  (or addictions), with rationality and reasoning.

I think that although humans do become addicted to technology, with awareness, we can overcome those traps and in fact use technology in ways to benefit us.

Humans are not the tools to technology, we merely become tools to our own desires.
As long as we can consciously determine how to use our technology, it becomes a power.