In school we learn about evolution. We learn about how we humans have evolved from animals, most recently from apes and chimpanzees. We learn about Charles Darwin, his theory of the Evolution of the Species and of Natural Selection. When I was in school I readily accepted and subscribed to these theories as fact.

Yet at the end of the chapter on evolution I was left with a feeling of profound disappointment.

After studying all about where we had come from and what we had once been, I turned the page eager to discover more, only to find a blank space. That was apparently the end of the story. What a let down!

For me, there was only one relevant question, and that question was never even asked in school, let alone answered.

My question was not: “Where have we come from?” As far as I was concerned that was all very fascinating but didn’t really matter, for there was nothing I could do about that now.

My question was, and remains: “Where are we heading?” This seemed the only question worth knowing the answer to.

For if evolution is a thing – and apparently it is – then surely this process is a continuum. The school texts treated the matter as though it were a straight line of progression with an end point, that point being humanity in our present state.

Yet this cannot be. In the process of evolution, we can never be a finished product. Just as we have evolved from something, so must we be evolving into something else, presumably something better, higher, more powerful and illumined.

Here is where it gets exciting: we are now at the singular most crucial point in all of our evolution to date.

Why, and how?

(… to be continued)