Full Circle
Man was born in Africa.
Around a million years ago our ancestors had the courage to climb down from the trees and venture onto the savannah where we learned to stand tall and proud.
We were not the strongest or fastest, but were able to live side by side with the fiercest of creatures, able to take care of ourselves.
Under the blazing sun, beneath those vast skies, we grew – tilled the land with our hands, caught our prey with our wits and built communities with our hearts.
From those early beginnings man set forth on a mission of exploration, migrating north and south, searching for new lands to inhabit and fresh territories to call his own. Soon he covered the globe, no environment too harsh for this curious breed.
Today I look with awe at what we have achieved in that million years. I see buildings of unimaginable size, am able to hear sounds and see images transported from the four corners of the globe into my living room, can travel in an hour what would have taken a day just a few generations ago.
We have sent men to another world through an empty airless void, and a multitude of machines circling hundreds of miles above the earth send us information constantly.
Man is truly remarkable. But then I see my own life where I spend hours sitting in traffic cursing, even longer at work pressing meaningless buttons on a keyboard. My hands are soft, my skin is pallid, my belly sags and I wonder where it all went wrong.
* Nick Allen is a mental health nurse from Manchester, England.
