A Ru-velation, a (r)evolution, a relocation & Neo-Hope on Dr. Jane Goodall’s Death Anniversary
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist guiding fellow mindful mortals at the threshold of life, death, devotion, and (r)evolution. His work blends neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration to invite braver ways of being human.
On October 1, 2026, the first anniversary of Dr. Jane Goodall’s death, I find myself wondering what it means to inherit hope. We can rewatch Famous Last Words: Dr. Jane Goodall, celebrate her extraordinary life, and feel reassured that someone so compassionate once walked among us. But remembrance presents a more demanding, Mary Oliver-esque question, "What will each of us do with the life still available to us?"
I never met Jane, yet she has been one of my precious teachers. Long before I knew words such as primatology, thanatology, or the Anthropocene, she helped me recognize something I already sensed, the distance between humans and other animals was never as great as we imagined.
Humans have reached toward this realization for centuries, Jesus prayed “that they may all be one,” Buddhism teaches interbeing, Hindu wisdom offers Tat Tvam Asi, “Thou art That,” and Frankie Beverly sang it with R&B heart, We Are One.
Dr. Goodall saw sentient individuals where others saw creature specimens. Her work helped generations recognize that chimpanzees did not need to become more human to deserve our care, we needed to become humble enough to recognize the complex social lives that dwell among the forests.
Jane has now been gone a year. Eventually, I will die too. So will you. Many species sharing this planet with us may disappear. That is not nihilism. It is mortality.
Personal death awareness strips away one of our favorite hiding places, later. Later I will speak honestly. Later I will repair the relationship. Later I will protect what I love. Later I will become the person I suspect I already am.
The Anthropocene is making “later” an increasingly expensive place to store our good intentions.
So, on Jane Goodall’s death anniversary, I am coming out again.
Who you calling an ape?
I first came out as a gay man at seventeen, though I knew much earlier that I was “different.” Publicly acknowledging my queerness taught me something I have never forgotten, naming who you are does not create who you are. Coming out is a lifelong process.
Forty years later, I care to share something else I know. I experience myself as a chimp soul living in a human body.
I sometimes think of this as my transspecies coming-out. I am not making a biological claim or asking science to certify my soul. It is simply the most honest language I have found for something deeply personal and spiritual.
In kindergarten, I collected chimpanzee pictures, perched on bookshelves, ate bananas, and felt something deeper than fascination. Something in me recognized something in them.
Adulthood supplied plenty of respectable identities. None canceled the chimp. I just kept my soul caged and safely hidden.
An earlier version of me might have spent paragraphs making everyone comfortable with this revelation, or Ru-velation. Mortality has changed my ape-proach. I no longer feel much need to audition my soul before an imaginary committee.
I know who I am. I hope my coming-out makes you curious about who you are. My Ru-velation is partly an affectionate nod to RuPaul Andre Charles, whose work reminds us that becoming ourselves can include celebration, humor, glamour, and self-love rather than shame.
“Know thyself” is one of humanity’s oldest invitations, yet many of us spend more time reacting outward than listening inward. Beneath all our social costuming waits a quieter question, "Who am I when I am no longer performing for bananas?"
My chimp soul is one answer. The point is self-awareness.
Transspecies edutainment
Popular culture has long invited us across the human-animal boundary. With ape-reciation to Robbie Williams, Better Man reminds us that a simian self can mirror the human one. His Dark Materials gives humans animal-shaped dæmons, The Animal Kingdom asks what happens when transformation is feared, and Nimona celebrates fluidity without treating it as something to cure.
Second Nature brings us out of metaphor and back into a scientific, evidence-based reality, where biological and behavioral diversity complicates tidy categories. None proves my chimp soul, these films and this documentary simply widen what we imagine identity can be.
Evolving in real time
Jane’s teachings invite us to question the fantasy that evolution lifted us out of nature.
Yet we speak about “animals” as though the word excludes us and “nature” as though it were somewhere we visit, or something we must tame, manage, or escape. The Anthropocene confronts us with an uncomfortable truth, we have become powerful enough to leave a planetary imprint while remaining reluctant to accept responsibility for it.
When I speak of (r)evolution now, I am asking whether we can evolve culturally, psychologically, and ethically in real time.
Can intelligence mature into wisdom? Can privilege mature into responsibility? Can grief become purposeful action?
Urgency does not mean we should panic. It is a call to action and a reminder to live more deliberately, love more consciously, and act while action is still possible.
Kinship has consequences
Calling myself a chimp soul does not allow me to escape humanity. It makes my human responsibilities harder to ignore.
This white male body has opened doors for me. My queerness has taught me something about exclusion, but it does not erase my privileges elsewhere. Self-knowledge without humility can become another mask or closet.
I call myself an Empathic Commoner, someone trying to remain awake and responsive to the shared world without imagining a spiritual VIP lounge above it.
Sometimes self-knowledge asks whether our surroundings still allow us to remain ourselves. James Baldwin left America for Paris in 1948 under circumstances profoundly different from mine. What I take from Baldwin is not equivalence, but permission to ask, "What environment allows me to remain truthful enough to do my work?"
My answer, for now, is Borneo.
At Matang Wildlife Centre, some of the clearest lessons were gloriously unglamorous, preparing enrichment, shoveling ape shit, and working beside local people whose responsibilities continued after I flew home.
The sanctuary orangutans did not ask for my résumé, but some were receptive to my gifts, singing bowls and books. The humans caring for them needed me to listen, learn, serve, and give more than I took.
A plane ticket changes geography, ethical and culturally attuned conduct determines contribution.
The Anthropocene and the evolution of hope
Dr. Goodall knew her final recorded words would reach us after she was gone. She chose not despair, but a charge, “Don’t lose hope.” Even at the end of her life, Jane was asking us to participate, not for her, but for the good of all.
I want to honor my teacher’s legacy without turning hope into a museum piece, preserved behind glass and admired from a safe distance.
Some species will disappear. Ecosystems will become unfamiliar. The world we know is already changing. Our work begins by sitting honestly with what is, grieving what cannot be restored, acting where our care can still make a difference, and cultivating the wisdom to know the difference.
I refuse to pretend everything will be fine. Sometimes my chimp soul has no inspirational quote to offer, it answers the enormity with an anguished pant-hoot.
But I also refuse despair’s seductive conclusion that because we cannot prevent every loss, nothing we do matters.
There is enormous territory between denial and despair.
That is where Neo-Hope lives.
Neo-Hope is a kind of (r)evolving Serenity Prayer, acceptance without surrender, action without illusion, and care without requiring certainty about the ending.
Inward: Know yourself.
Onward: Take purposeful action.
Upward: Care for the whole.
Neo-Hope makes room for grief because grief tells us what we have loved. What it refuses to do is let grief calcify the heart.
Dr. Goodall is gone, care remains
Death does not end a relationship. A teacher we never met can shape our choices. Eventually, the teacher leaves the room, and the students discover whether they were actually listening.
Perhaps we are all Jane Goodall now, not because any of us can replace her, but because noticing, questioning, protecting, and caring belong to those of us who remain.
For me, Neo-Hope has taken form in Subversive Acts of Humanity and Primates, Privilege & Possibility, two ways I am turning reflection into purposeful action.
Those are my offerings. Yours will take a different form, as they should.
Evolution does not require sameness. It demands coexistence.
Dr. Goodall spent her life paying attention and, in the end, asked us not simply to inherit her hope, but to pay it forward. Perhaps the most faithful way to honor her is to keep that hope alive enough to evolve through us.
Jane is gone. We are still here.
What will we do with the life still available to us?
Read more from Kenneth J. Breniman
Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist whose work lives at the intersection of mortality, meaning, and transformation. Drawing from neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration, he challenges the myth of human exceptionalism while honoring the precious role each of us plays in the ongoing evolution of our species. Ken is the author of a three-body solution and subversive acts of humanity, and the creator of the See-Soul children’s grief literacy series. Through writing, teaching, and ritual-informed practice, he guides mindful mortals toward deeper humility, resilience, and collective becoming.
