It’s quite some time now that I wanted to start writing. What to write about?

Well if you have lived a couple of millions of years, then there is a lot to write. Besides this, today, every one writes all over the place. Never before in the human history, so much has been written. I know because I was around when humans started writing. When around 3500 to 3400 B.C some of you in Sumer (modern-day southern Iraq) started not only using “numbers” to remember what you acquired and what you spent (yes humans started keeping track of their “stuff” long before they started writing their thoughts) but also using symbols and later refining them to build “stories” first, sentences later and finally words (much much much later). And in order to put this into perspective you already had invented brewing beer 4,5 thousand years before the wheel (congrats, that’s a huge thing for you, but then again you still haven’t learn that alcohol and wheels don’t go together) and 5,5 thousand years before you started writing. I guess that explains a lot. Maybe it also explains why the symbol for human females would look like this back in 3500BC:

(As found in: http://www.historian.net/hxwrite.htm)

So there has never been more writing (and possibly more beer brewing and wheels) in human history than there is today. And as it is to be expected, most of it is nonsense (or doesn’t taste any good, if it’s beer. Don’t get me started on wheels).

The thing about writing nonsense is that, the last to be aware of it is the writer. So this could be another nonsense writing case. The one thing though that could set my writings apart from other nonsense writings is that, I don’t claim that it isn’t nonsense, makes sense?

I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Musings, Mammuth Musings. And to be more precise:

Mammuthus Meridionalis Elephantini Elephantidae Proboscidea Musings (first name, tribe name, family name, order name, last name) and my genus has gone officially extinct at approx. 2000 B.C. Now before I explain to you how it comes that I am extinct and still be able to write this let me tell you something about us.

We used to have these long names because we got into believing that we are the greatest creatures in earth. That no one could ever do anything against us, cause first of all we were huge (well most of us). Secondly we were smart (the stupid dinosaurs died millions of years ago, some other very intelligent mammals went into the oceans) so it was only us left being big and intelligent. You should have seen us back in the day. Moving in big powerful herds through the steppes of Siberia, the lakes of North America, the jungles of Asia and South America, the flatlands of the European and the African continent. We were so much into ourselves that we had to have these huge names, to show off, to manifest our superiority. Never had we thought how meaningless all this is, and how our extinction after having been on the earth for about 5 million years, will come slowly and partially led from one of the most insignificant mammal of all times: the human. The funny part is that by the time we went extinct we had been around for almost twice as long as the modern human (5 million years vs. 2.5 million years).

We had seen the signs, many of them. It was getting warmer, water was rising and even though we did not have the means to communicate with each other long distance, the birds, the other mammals the whole earth was telling the same story. And what do you think we did? Exactly: nothing! We had survived the ice age, and at least another warming period, we were huge and smart and strong. Even if it was true (so we were thinking) that the climate was changing, even if the humans were getting stronger and smarter, nothing can touch us. We are Mammuths for nature’s sake: the biggest mammals walking on the planet.

Well we all know where that thinking led us. The last or our families died in the Wrangel Island in East Siberia somewhere around 2000 BC (give or take 500 years). You are very welcome to ignore all this and not see it as a warning for your own future.

However some others and me managed to survive and live for long long time. It wasn’t an easy task but then again: It wasn’t very hard either. Especially after the industrialization  it got easier. The tough part was to hide when all of you where really connected to nature. The more you humans moved away from it, the easier was for us to hide. Nowadays, we can walk in the middle of an open-air market and you won’t notice. Except for some infants (which you don’t understand anyway when they scream „a mammuth. for gods sake a mammuth“ or laugh “for no reason”) and some very few children (which you don’t take seriously anyway) no one really sees us, even if are standing in front of you. You are too occupied with yourselves. Like we were.

Some of us have created companies (hiding in the background) with the most known probably http://www.mammut.ch/ and some others (http://www.mammothelectronics.com/, http://www.mammoth-inc.com/). Some designed great products (like the amazing Münch Mammut TTS/E 1220 motorbike), some other created bands http://www.mammut.is/ etc. etc. So you see, we are not really extinct, at least not in e meta-post-extinction level (or something equally important sounding). You just ignore us, like you ignore so many great things around you. But this may change…