It always makes me nervous when I start typing words. I never know where my words are going to go. I know that many of you plan your blog posts with great care. Not me. I think of a topic and just sort of let the words pour out… (Hence the clever name of my blog, I guess)…
And in a way, you could say that the way I blog is a lot like the way evolution works. Nature comes up with a bunch of ideas and tosses them out onto the winds of chance and fate. Some of them work. Most of them don’t.
I have never understood why so many people consider evolution and creationism to be mutually exclusive. I am a completely nonreligious person, but it just seems to me that we don’t have to choose one or the other. Why is it less of a miracle that all of the life that exists today evolved from simple organisms over millions of years than if some higher power did it all in a week? The main point of argument seems to be how long it took to happen. But let’s set that aside for now.
I do think I have figured out one part of the evolutionary concept that makes some people uncomfortable… besides that whole being descended from monkeys thing… It is another one of those things that we must all be aware of, but we seldom if ever talk about. So of course I want to talk about it. You know how I am.
And here is that point:
The fact that each and every one of us is alive today can be boiled down to one obvious fact. It means that for every single generation over millions of years, two of our distant ancestors had to survive to reach breeding age. And the conclusion is as obvious as it is inescapable. We do not all come from a long line of heroes.
Yeah, you heard me. And you know I am right. And it makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?
But let’s face it. Heroes tend to die young. And if just one of those endless members of your family tree had died before passing on their genes, then you would not be alive today. So just accept the truth. It doesn’t mean they were all cowards by any means. But they were realists and survivors.
To avoid the controversy of going back to our animal ancestry or even beyond to the simple organisms that swam in the primordial soup, let’s just take the cavemen as an example. When the saber-toothed tiger attacked, our ancestors were not the first to leap into battle. They were the ones who paused for a moment to let someone else thrust the first spear. When the volcano erupted, our forebears didn’t always rush to save the women and children. They were too busy making sure they had a clear path through the lava flows.
In later years, these survival skills, so carefully honed through generation upon generation, just became second nature. In 1917, when the whistle blew and the orders were given for the men to go ‘over the top’, to climb out of the trenches and assault the enemy, maybe our illustrious family member had to pause for a moment to tie his shoes.
No, I am not saying that all your ancestors were cowards who tossed baby cave people to the tigers to save themselves, or hid in a trench. But I would be willing to bet that a fair percentage of our family line had a pretty good sense of their own worth, and were not above balancing the odds in their favor. It isn’t anything to be ashamed of. And even if it were, at least you are alive to feel that shame.
Pouring My Art Out 
Pausing or escaping; the only reasons I’m alive to tell the story, no shame in that.
That’s what I say.
Coming from a long line of survivors and realists and people with a sense of their own worth…I can live with that.
That is all I ask.
I too sometimes start writing and have no idea where it is going. In this case, I was going to comment on your post, then ended up writing my own post: http://irvent.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/creative-oozing-and-evolution/
I am a ‘broad concept’ guy… I depend on you all to do most of the heavy lifting… and thinking… for me.
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This is the second post in a row I’ve followed benzeknees, I feel like I’m stalking now! I have nothing to add I just though that was a coincidence.
You people are getting into a rut… let’s mix it up a little.
Joe – it just means great minds think alike. You & I are doing our surfing at the same time & we have the good taste to follow some of the same people!
I am a hub in the universal consciousness flow…
🙂
Maybe some of our ancestors were very skilled at killing sabre-toothed tigers & that’s how we survived? A man only has to live long enough to get the deed done, it’s the woman who needs to be protected & live longer to deliver the baby & care for it until it can care for itself. The male ancestor only has to live for about a minute after impregnating the female ancestor to still be considered an ancestor.
Yeah… I’m sure all the cave men were just tiger slaying love machines…
Obviously love machines or no you or no me!
With one hand they were beating off the tigers, and with the other hand… never mind… there is no graceful way out of that opening…
Funnily enough I was thinking about evolution yesterday and was wondering who the first perosn on earth able to speak spoke to.
If I am any indication, he spoke to himself…
Wonder what he said?
That is a good question, because I usually mutter stuff about stupid things that other people said.
Maybe it was “I can talk!”
That is deep.
Imagine saying it and no-one can reply! Jeez…….
That would be hell for me.
I agree that cowardice is definitely one of main evolutionary forces, but I like to think that my ancestors survived more due to luck and rational planning than cowardice. One of my grandfathers spent WWII in a submarine – a place where a sailor’s personal courage or lack thereof will have a decisive impact on survival only in the rarest of situations.
And of course, most of my known relatives were lucky to be born thousands of miles from nearest volcano.
I completely overlooked luck as a factor, but just because I didn’t want to get carried away and do a 5,000 word rant. See how lucky you are?
I am lucky, that was my point.
By the way, you can avoid a 5,000 word rant by writing 20 separate 250-word rants and getting 30-40 times more views. No, my math is not off – that’s because a 5,000 word long post tends to induce a certain amounts of cowardice in readers.
I actually did a post just a while ago, or a series of posts rather, about things I have learned from blogging, and buried in the funny list was the observation that a lot of short posts get more hits than one long one. But I didn’t do any math… because I suck at math. And I rarely follow my own advice.
I’m sure that some of my relatives here in the states or on the Emerald Isle are the sort to do dastardly deeds.
I really loved this post and your point of view.
Thanks. I guess we all do have heroes in out past… just not a whole lot of them…
I can’t even think of a witty retort. That is a fascinating argument.
Fight or flight… out ancestors chose correctly!
Never really thought of the evolution/creation thing this way. So balanced. Thanks. And yeah, I tend to know what I want to write before I write it. That’s a good and a bad thing. Good if what I want to say has a beginning, middle and end. Bad if I get stuck after the first few sentences. Which I do. A lot. So thanks for the suggestion. I’m gonna try to see what I can write without thinking too much about it. Of course, I have gotten myself into a lot of trouble by SAYING things without thinking first. Perhaps writing will prove less fraught with regret;-)
My life is a tale of speaking without thinking first. My blog is the perfect examples. I sometimes do these open letter things that piss off the religious of many faiths, people on the other side of the political spectrum, gun nuts, the KKK, future potential mass murderers and so on. But what is life without taking a few risks?
it’s an interesting way to look at it, the not-heroes thing. It’s a good point–I often explain my refusal to jump off diving boards as my ancestors screaming at me (though looked at from a certain angle it could be said that our ancestors tended to think their way through problems rather than rushing at them). I think I find as much serenity and joy in examining evolution as my religious friends do in their religion, and I usually think of it as: we come from a long line of love. Babies do not survive unless they are loved. People do not reach breeding age unless other people help them. And then they, in their turn, love and care for their babies and children long enough for those children to reach breeding age. We don’t win evolution when we have children, we win when we have grandchildren. Those that love win; thus we are evolved to love.
That was beautiful. The downside of my rambling rants is that I do not always take the path that leads to the most beautiful garden. I am too busy just trying to be silly. But I couldn’t agree more with the love thing.
i don’t plan ahead with my posts at all, i just blog. the odd time if i know i’m going to be really busy the next day, i will do one ahead but rarely.
That is why we get along so well, I guess.
maybe!
You can’t ever just come out and say what you mean in the simplest way, can you?
there’s a possibility..
Yeah, there is a possibility that politicians might actually get something done, too.
not
precisely…
precisely what?
Precisely that.
right
left
and you shake it all about, you do the hokey pokey..
I am going to put my left foot in… but I am not shaking anything all about.
i’m good with that!
good one…
always
You have a pretty good average, but let’s not get carried away.
a beyond amazing, spectacular, world record,astonishing, record…
Like I said, pretty good.
pft
ha sigh belch.
ew
doowah…