Where have we come from, and where will we go?

This is largely a thought piece and inspiration post, with some ideas that you have probably heard of and others that may be new to you. Read at your leisure and feel free to dive into a rabbit hole of any of the ideas discussed - you might even get a new story idea out of it!

When I was younger I used to dream of living in the forest. I read Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness and absolutely idealised the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. It just seemed so free and there was something so appealing about living in nature - though I had barely been camping at the time.

Now that I'm older I have been camping (I love it) and I've found myself a partner who takes me on multi-day hikes over the mountains and through the forests, so I've managed to live this childhood dream in a small way. My first novel is also about a woman who leaves society to live in the rainforest and - spoiler - it's hard, if not nigh on impossible, for a modern person to live alone in the rainforest. My protagonist has a lot of help from a mythical shape-shifting creature that embodies evolution, otherwise she definitely wouldn't survive.

I would still like to go off grid one day but I do have more of an appreciation for some of our modern conveniences and if I do head to the wild, I will be taking some of these conveniences with me.

Looking to the future of our species often seems uncertain, but looking at both the past and the future can give you inspiration for all kinds of stories.

From cave-dwelling to exploring, stories have made us human

Looking back in time

Looking to the past or the future offers a feast for the imagination. The question of 'where do we come from' has weighed heavy on us since our species evolved and have always inspired us to tell stories.

Throughout every culture we have origin stories: Adam and Eve in Christianity; The Sky Woman in some Native American cultures; Pangu from parts of China and Prometheus and Epimetheus from Greek mythology, to name a few. We have always been trying to explain ourselves, asking the questions: why are we here and how did we get here?

With modern advances is archaeology we now have more answers, and questions, than ever before in regards to our origin. In recent years, the timeline of human evolution has shifted from being that of a simple tree as new species evolved and branched off, to something of a thicket. Our own ancestors would have been living amongst many of these species them and, in the case of Neanderthals, it is now fairly common knowledge that we interbred with them as most Europeans have up to 1.5% Neanderthal DNA.

With our new wealth of knowledge the Earth begins to look a bit more like Tolkien's Middle Earth when we go back 150,000 years. We can begin to question - what would it be like for all of these species to mingle? Why are they extinct and we survived? What would the world be like for us today if we weren't the only human species?

I could write a whole book on all this - and maybe I will one day - but if you're interested in knowing more, and imagining more, check out Almost Human, Lee Berger, The Inheritors, William Golding, and Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel. You can go down an absolute rabbit hole here.

Remember, any question can be the start of a great story!

To infinity and.... beyond?

With so much information coming out about where we come from, and so many more questions coming with this information, let's think about where we'll end up going in the future.

Space colonisation has long been fantasised about, as has robots or AI taking over and the next stage of human evolution as hyper-intelligent beings or lazy, overweight TV-watching machines (think WALL-E). But where are we actually going? And what could be a realistic next stage of evolution?

Our species has always thrived with multiple communities and lifestyles.

I've already told you how I used to dream of nature and living with it, and this dream has stuck with me even when thinking about and writing Sci-Fi.

Throughout all my great 28 years of age, the belief that everyone is different has grown in me. I see the future as, hopefully, a gloriously diverse creature that allows people to live out their dreams.

Some don't mind being completely isolated from the outside world, playing video games or watching movies, and these people may be suited to a life in space. Others, myself included, have a deep love for our own planet and hope for a future of greenery - many of my sci-fi stories see 90% of the planet rewilded and humans living in small, hi-tech communities throughout.

To me the idea of colonising other planets is not a bad thing in itself but we currently live on a planet that we are perfectly adapted to and there is no other like it. We are explorers by nature but many also want to live a simple, happy life. With the tang ping (lay flat) movement in China and quiet quitting in the Western world it seems like a lot of the younger generation are beginning to have values that more align with ancient people than the capitalistic world we currently live in.

The value of time, connection with friends and family, and gardening suggests that the future may be open to multiple possibilities, just as our species has always thrived with multiple communities and lifestyles, yet even astronauts dream of coming back to smell the Earth and feel the sun and wind on their skin. Perhaps the next stage of evolution could be accepting people's dreams more fully. Allowing some people to go and explore the cosmos, while others are allowed to fully heal our Earth.

Whatever is next, and whatever the truth is about the past there sure are a lot of stories out there waiting to be imagined and told. And who knows, maybe your story will make a teenager dream of the forest, or mars, and maybe they'll get to live in either place one day. Or both!

Thank you for reading this 'inspiration' post, I hope you've enjoyed it. Are there any topics that always make your imagination go wild? Would you like to share them? You can email an article to sbewilliams95@gmail.com and I will publish it here under your name! Unfortunately, this is not a monetised publication currently but I'd love to share your work. If you just have an idea of something you'd like to read an article about, you can also email that over and I will explore it!

Hope you've enjoyed reading and see you next week.

Sarah xx