She stops, pauses, turns to the left to glance at some possible threat or irregularity, and then continues to the north. This motion, so intensely human, transcends time.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the human ability to respond to potential threats and the significance of such actions over time.
Mary Leakey's quote emphasizes a fundamental aspect of human behavior: our instinct to assess our surroundings for threats before proceeding. This seemingly simple motion of stopping and looking around evokes a deep understanding of our evolutionary past and illustrates how our responses to the environment are timeless and intrinsic to what it means to be human.
In practice
In a discussion about human evolution at a seminar, one might use this quote to highlight our innate instincts.
There were details like clothing, hair styles and the fragile objects that hardly ever survive for the archaeologist-musical instruments, bows and arrows, and body ornaments depicted as they were worn... No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely
I dug things up. I was curious. I liked to draw what I found.
Basically, I have been compelled by curiosity.
No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely.
With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to.
There has to be a common sense cutoff for craziness, and when that threshold is exceeded, then the criteria for publication should get far, far more stringent.
Physically robust infrastructure is not enough if it fails to foster a healthy community; ultimately, all infrastructure is social.
I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)
From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars.
War don't ennoble men, it turns 'em into dogs. It poisons the soul.
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