why is it that whenever I am disillusioned with the world I go back to the epic of Gilgamesh
“It is the story of their becoming human together.”
This is it. This is the oldest written literary work that we know of, and it’s a story of becoming human together.
This is a story about love, and it’s a story about death, and we told this story thousands of years ago, THOUSANDS of years. We have always, always, always been wrestling with this profoundly beautiful existence and with knowing one another, while knowing that we all will die and be forgotten.
We become human by loving, but we also become human by knowing death.
And I’m just sitting here touching other human beings, another human experience, from across millennia, feeling a bit more human too through it, and I am trying very hard not to cry.
Sure, you could see the Epic of Gilgamesh as a beautiful story about becoming human together. Or you could see it as the most helpless-giggle-inducingly absurd section of a review of an 850-horsepower station wagon. I really hope the timestamp works, but if not, the relevant part starts at 10:26. Please watch it and please support this channel, even if you don’t like cars it will still make you laugh. They’re a couple of queers, one of whom is a furry and a former professor of English at the University of Alaska, and their “reviews” more often delve into the sociological landscape that the cars were born into and the philosophical implications of their design than boring shit like 0-60 times. It is maybe my favorite YouTube channel, and certainly my favorite car channel.
