start at the beginning

It is good to start at the beginning. There is a nearly 4000 year old (oldest known?) fable of Gilgamesh, found inscribed in tablets unearthed in the nineteenth century. It is a beautiful epic of friendship, heroism and self-discovery set in a narrative that has been repeated many, many times in the four millennium of story-telling that has followed it. The recent version by Stephen Mitchell has good reviews, but there are many other versions. Among other things the fable has a veiled description of the Noah's Ark and explains why snakes shed their skin. It is marvelous. In an insightful moment in Star Trek Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 2, Aired Sept 1991, Stardate 45047), Picard recalls the tale of Gilgamesh and narrates it to Darmok. The Old meets The Future. Rest of this blog will be somewhere in-between.