Genetic Liberation From Our Fleshly Forms
I went to a new dentist, who had brought her parrot into work that day. I told her that some of my teeth were sensitive because of gum recession. She shrugged her shoulders. “Why don’t I just get something to help with that? We have a prescription-strength desensitizer that should last a while.” The hygienist who applied it got a little bit on my lip as she laughed to herself about how charming Frank Sinatra was. Since then, my tooth sensitivity has completely gone away; My 5+ years of constant, devastating fear that a cold drink may possibly touch one side of my mouth is, as simple as that, no more.
What a world we live in! I’m like a sea turtle freed from a Coke can, like a plant finally given proper sunlight, like a suburban kid trying to find meaning in life finally getting to try heroin. What I had thought was a fixed fact of my health was suddenly and so easily rendered obsolete. Ecstatic, I’ve been rediscovering the joys of cold things with a childlike joy. I can’t tell the difference between hot and iced coffee anymore and cold showers are just “showers” to me now. I get sunburns just to feel alive. Scientists have done tests on me and I’m not sure when they’ll stop, but they give me candy.
Sadly, like only some adults have learned to do, I’ve matured from adolescence and am now faced with the cold reality of adulthood: Questions and Doubt. If this tooth sensitivity was so easy to fix, what else about my “natural” existence could be remedied or rendered null? I’ve since come up with three things about human biology that, after second thought, aren’t real.
1. We are Weak
Do you think humans can fully convince themselves they can be something other than themselves? Besides when I was overtaken by an extraterrestrial who bestowed me with self-determination, it’s not something that I can relate to, however open to it I am. Maybe you aren’t even yourself. Yes you, just stop reading this for a second and think. How is it possible to consider who you are?
If you shaved a chimpanzee they’d look pretty similar to a human being. Somewhere along the way humans decided to start running and chimpanzees decided to keep swinging. Endurance and motor control versus quick bursts of raw power. There’s gotta be a drug out there that can trick human muscles into exerting monkey power, at least for a bit. And I’m not talking Barry-Bonds steroids, I’m talking physiological transformation of our biology. You’d have to tune the drug to physically alter the muscle besides just mentally sending the right signals to that muscle, but I’m sure they figured that out in trials decades ago. I’m not even sure that the orangutans in zoos are actually "orangutans" or if they’re “failed” experiments that have left victims in the orangutan state. I will call a meeting with them at the zoo and will get back to you about this whenever possible.
2. We are Ambidextrous
Yawning, sneezing, dreams, and why she won’t text me back are all unexplainable phenomena that stump even the brightest minds of our generation. Hand-sidedness is one of those very questions. Besides being a useful tool to explain differences in society and how we create power dynamics based on that observation of difference, is there an evolutionary advantage to having a dominant hand?
One theory is that, like good vision and good dick, they’ve slipped past our species as we gradually removed ourselves from the food web. Society developed such that people with poor vision could simply wear glasses, and limp dick men with no game discovered that money could get them some vagina. Thus, whatever hand those men use to jelq and jork it after a baddie rejects their trash personalities doesn’t really matter much. Think of hand dominance as a skill issue in the broader game of life: All other organisms with limbs wish they had the right-versus-left debates of our species (or at least they think they do), but instead they’re now in zoos being heckled by toddlers whose parents should have done everything in their power to prevent them from being born.
That’s all well and good except that most vertebrates actually do prefer one side. Parrots tend to be lefties, walruses tend to be righties, octopuses pick a dominant tentacle, and on and on. Perhaps handedness actually has to do with efficiency of thought - Organisms expend more energy by focusing on more things, so having to consider two or four or eight appendages in equal measure is more tiresome than just one. Back to our sad sack limp dick man example: If he wasn’t so concerned with what all of his appendages could be doing later that night (and one in particular), maybe he’d actually make decent eye contact and stop drooling. Men suck.
3. We Have Spiritual Powers Like Eels
After generations of pondering, role-play, and the occasional gentle caress, researchers have figured out the mystery of eel sex: They swim a lot more than we thought. European Eels swim for thousands of miles over the course of years to lay eggs and fertilize them in an ideal basin, previously undiscovered in part because of how incomprehensible the effort was perceived to be.
Stop! Think about that! Eels, which are eels, have the sense to swim thousands of miles over several years, literally across an ocean, to perform an act they’ve never done before because, I suppose, it feels right.
Clearly this is an act of God, and more specifically an act of Eel God. Where our God compels us to do stupid shit like eat Dunkin Donuts and commit genocides, Eel God compels eels to focus on the profound truths of life: fertilization, water, and eel. From our limited mammalian perspective, eels are both observably stupider than humans and perhaps possess a wisdom far surpassing our understanding of cognition. Maybe humans are trapped in a conceptual zoo of belief, caging ourselves in limited, rational boxes while eels swim by looking at us with curiosity and peculiar derision. “Such lonely creatures, only able to see with their eyes”, they say as they wiggle past.
Who knows the potential of our species should we swallow our monkey pride and get on both knees in front of Eel God. “Eel God, I beseech thee, thee Eel of all Eels!” Perhaps we would tap into an underlying spirituality and purpose that belies our current ignorance. And how would we know unless we try? Reject society, embrace Eel.
In Conclusion,
Are zoos more of a window into the world besides humans or a mirror of humanity’s inability to think outside of itself? Have you ever seen a shaved orangutan? At what point did human society begin implicitly messaging that men deserved anything they desired?
Skepticism is important. Questioning pre-supposed knowledge is the through line of development in any species, all of which evolve through trial and error by individuals doing something that feels right. That doesn’t mean following a gut instinct will have a progressive outcome: If an eel decides not to make their journey, they won’t make more eels to later face the same question. Monkeys who decided to walk instead of swing didn’t necessarily make the right decision either, as proved by their Joe-Rogan-fascism-simulator-in-real-life-ancestors in the modern day. More universally, “failure” and “death” are necessary results in the broader process of the universe, all of which comes from a point of doubt, curiosity, and action.
I implore you to find a picture of a shaved monkey and tell me that it doesn’t look at least a little bit like your mother.