To think of a creature “in its natural habitat” — that’s an idea that puzzles me. What is the natural habitat of a lion? Is it the jungle, or the desert? The only statement that seems safe to say is that lions do not naturally dwell in the ocean. And the zoo is no creature’s natural habitat.
But why is it less natural to put a sweater on a dog than on a man? And why should either be leashed?
Or, if you were to shear a sheep and make a shirt from the wool; then allow the selfsame sheep to don this shirt — would that be natural? It feels unnatural to me, if only because a human being is required to do the shearing and tailoring of the sheep’s clothing — for such a state of affairs to be defined as “natural”, sheep would need to be born along with their own shirt-making human, the way that a flashlight is sold in a package that says “Batteries included!”
As usual, I’m trying to move toward an idea and not doing so very well. What I really wanted to think about is human order: What we call “civilization”. Despite some people finding the notion offensive (or maybe precisely because they find it offensive), I love the notion of savagery. But by that last word I don’t mean violence, butchery — no, I mean the idea of the “natural man” who lives “in the wild”. Man in his natural habitat. Where would that be, by the way — what is man’s natural habitat? Transylvania? Antarctica? A business office in Cincinnati? Perhaps the moon?
And why is the loincloth considered mankind’s natural attire?
I also wish I knew more about the state of Earth when all the land was just one mass, before it fractured into continents. Also I prefer the age when Earth was flat; Heaven was up, and Hell was down. Nowadays, Earth is globe-shaped; Heaven fell into outer space, and Hell is everywhere.
But, returning to the idea of Earth consisting of a single landmass surrounded by one vast ocean — this thought came to me because I was lamenting the fact that I live in an age of Big Wars; and the distrust of each world-power for the other world-powers leads them all to draw strong borders around their zones of influence.
This leads me to think about how the Internet, in my lifetime, has gone from a system of communication that we dreamed would be universal, like the sole supercontinent of early Earth, to a divided scattering of mini-Internets: one for each power-zone. For it seems that, since all the powers must distrust one another, Russia will have her own Internet, and China already has her own Internet, and America will have her own… Whereas I was hoping that we would all be able to talk to each other for a little while longer.
One of my favorite memories of the days when I first began dabbling with the Internet was all the individuals I befriended who happened to live in faraway places — I met the loveliest people from realms like Portugal, Germany, Russia, Denmark, England, Florida, etc… This was thrilling, to someone who has never left his hometown in Minnesota.
This property that I own, Minnesota, shares a border with the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas, as well as the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario. These regions are vast — although I called them “states” or “provinces”, it seems like each really should be considered its own COUNTRY.
But since I only gave the name of dry lands above, I should also mention that a small part of Minnesota borders the body of water known as Lake Superior.
Think about this: What if Lake Superior were to join up with its northern neighbor, Lake Winnipeg, and these two aquatic beings were to squeeze in between all the borders of the aforesaid masses of land, causing our states and provinces to drift apart, just like the original supercontinent did when the mono-ocean shattered it into rival gang territories.
If such an event were to occur, we’d be left with the country of Minnesota standing right in the center of the world. Thus, if you were a resident of that state, and you wanted to visit your neighbor Iowa, which you formerly were able to stroll to afoot, so as to spend your family vacation in its glorious cornfields, you’d now need to take an expensive cruise ship just to get there. — Likewise, if your plan as a Minnesota resident is to spend your next weekend enjoying the vibrant nightlife and red-light districts in the capital of Manitoba, you’d be required to take a ferry across Lake Winnipeg, which is now blocking your way! Lo, in former times, you could walk directly north out of your own backyard and eventually meet the Canadian Border Patrol, who would never hassle you, ever; but now it takes so long to navigate this body of water that divides our great nations that you end up passing the time of your journey by composing a poem at sundown which you call “Crossing Winnipeg Ferry”. That’s how strange things have gotten.
§
Above, I mentioned savagery versus civilization — the idea is that the latter perfects the former. But my thought is this: We’ve reached the point (remember, I’m writing from the early 21st century) where, if we were to simply find ourselves, in a flash, resituated “in our natural habitat”, in a “state of nature”, without any “civilized amenities”, we would certainly acquire an amount of hardships that we moderns are not accustomed to enduring (lack of electricity; lack of running water or plumbing; vicious animals everywhere waiting to tear us to pieces; no knowledge of metals to make hunting weapons; no fire to cook with; total ignorance of agriculture and thus no farms or gardens — we’d be forced to return to foraging for edible roots; and most of our infants would die of annoyance), but it would be nowhere near as bad as the hardships that modern civilization has plagued us with.
On a positive note, we would not have automobiles.
That last thought was a joke. I actually understand how useful motorized vehicles are: I only wish that we would voluntarily limit our usage of them — say, employ them to transfer food and goods from one place to another, rather than…
A true positive, however, about reverting back into savages, is that we would not have mobile phones.
§
I’m also fascinated by dentists, because they’re in a funny position: IF they do their job well, THEN they suffer unemployment.
Imagine an inhabited island that is, unbeknownst to its residents, truly an active volcano. This island’s population is 100 people: there are ninety-nine dentists and just one poet. In this situation, all the dentists on this island will be praying ceaselessly to the Volcano God (whom the poet invented), begging him to please curse the poet with tooth decay. Their reason for supplicating their Deity in this fashion is as follows. The dentists believe that, once they repair the poet’s teeth, the poet will pay them. You must admit that this is laughable. (Poets are penniless.)
Same with doctors. If everyone is healthy, doctors lose their reason to exist. They thrive on disease. Eliminate illness, and doctors grow sick.
The only truly helpful animal is the insurance agent. For he genuinely desires that you, his client, end up in Paradise. If you get wrongly tossed into Hades after death, then his company is forced to pay the full expenses of your relocation. The only way that they could avoid this responsibility would be to deny your claim; but that would never happen.
P.S.
I intended to end the above entry with a cop tale (a policemen’s adventure), but I ran out of time; so I will write a cop tale tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment