Walking My Brain
utumn. It invokes images of darkness, wet leaves and rain, but as I took a morning walk today, those images were nowhere to be seen. The leaves were covered with frost, falling down slowly all around me, making a crunching sound under my feet. There was no wind, the sun went up behind a thin veil of clouds at the horizon, illuminating a very bright landscape of white frost, green, yellow and red leaves.
A couple of jackdaws flew by overhead, calling out, making a soft rustling noise as they passed.
Amazing really, how they manage to find food and stay warm and safe, perfectly adapted to their environment.
I felt pretty well adapted to the surroundings myself, although I would have a harder time surviving on my own through the coming winter. Nice to have a walk, though. At least better than sitting in front of a computer screen. I cannot imagine I have evolved and adapted to my current occupation, hammering away at a keyboard all day long.
As I walk, I notice the leaves falling from the maple trees and how they manage to fly quite far from the tree itself, gliding through the air like strange delta-winged airplanes. Why do they fly like that? A coincidence? On the surface, that would seem reasonable.
On the other hand; usually there is a reason or a purpose for most things and occurrences in nature. Reasons, in the sense that there is often a benefit from having certain qualities that result in specific consequences, like having leaves of a certain shape, making them fly longer as they fall down. Some would argue it is a sign of a creator finding delight in his creation. Others would say it is a result of evolution.
Who is right? Is it important to know? Couldn’t we be just content with being amused by a tree that produces both delta-winged aircrafts as well as helicopters? The helicopter seeds can also serve as silly noses, perfectly designed to be fastened on children’s noses, complete with a nontoxic glue and everything.
A whimsical creator or millions of years of evolution? Or both?
There is probably a good biological explanation. Maybe the leaves fly well because the seed pods do. It makes sense in that it could be more efficient to fertilize a bigger area with leaves if the seeds fly far away from the tree, rather than dumping the leaves under the tree. If you would look at it closely, you would probably find that the maple leafs contain chemicals that inhibit germination and growth of other plants and promote the germination of maple seeds.
We have capacities both for rational thought and faith. Perhaps it is better to enjoy the fruits of both?
I see a small dog walking by himself across a field. He’s stumbling along on short stubby legs. His long flappy ears gets in the way all the time. It looks awkward and a little cute as he’s zigzagging his way across the field. Where is he heading? Why is he alone?
There’s an animal that would have a hard time surviving on it ’s own. How long did it take to breed that variant of the species? A couple of hundred years? A thousand? I wonder if we are breeding the human species into a form that lacks the abilities we would need to survive without civilization? Probably not. We are very adaptable thanks to the our intelligence. The only question is if we use it to further our survival as a species, or not.
Evolution is a lot about competition. Species compete for ecological niches that ensure their survival. It appears as if the human race has managed to win this competition, but we are still competing, stamping out species and ecological niches at a high rate. We’ll see if it will come back and bite as at the end.
We also compete a lot within our species and within and between cultures. There’s competition between corporations to conquer market niches and consumer groups. The same thing applies there. When corporations become very large, they have crossed the finish line and won the race, leaving the competition in the dust. Then they can do pretty much what they want, within reason. They have the economic powers to influence government and depending on the nature of their business, they can also influence our culture, our health and our ideas. Do they? Of course. Do they plan what kind of influence they want to have? I would suppose so, if they want to ensure their dominant position.
Is that a problem? Depends on how effective they are and what changes they have in mind. Really big changes take time, like evolving from a sea creature to a land creature. But the good thing about that kind of change is that it usually improves things. Species that survive get to be even more adapted, better tuned to their environment.
Breeding dogs, on the other hand may not, from the dogs point of view, result in an improvement. The owner might appreciate the cuteness, but the dog must be irked and bothered by those flapping big ears and stubby legs.
So, if the really big corporations have plans for changing us, I hope they will consider things like that.
If they only prioritize profits and continued dominance, then the changes they are striving for could be expected to be things like the dismantling of democracy, direct advertisement hookup to your brain and great big flapping ears and other stuff you would not be entirely satisfied with.
Some claim this, in a way, is already happening. Things that usually would be a good thing to have for the survivability of a species or a culture — like intelligence, moral values and good health — just gets in the way of business and are being dismantled.
Perhaps we’d better use our intelligence and our other resources to figure out where we are heading? Otherwise, we’ll end up waddling away across a big field, ears flapping, not knowing were we are going.
