Just a Couple of Days (42 page)

 

152
A single strand of DNA is two-billionths of a meter thin. This is approximately one forty-four-thousandth the diameter of a medium-sized human hair. So, is life nothing more than a skinny molecule containing all the information most organisms require for their pointless survival and reproduction?

Not at all. DNA is only the beginning of life, at least as far as we can see. DNA is life's furious librarian, forever organizing and
reorganizing information in the form of genetic traits necessary for a given organism to adapt to and thus survive in its environment. Among mammals, however, something else emerged, a novel manner of adapting to the environment. Learned behavior, information acquired during the lifetime of an organism, is what mammals, especially humans, depend upon for survival. It is an
extragenetic
source of information. Thus, while species may adapt to environmental conditions over the course of eons at the genetic level, humans can adapt much more efficiently within one lifetime, at the cultural level, in the information we share between one another.

At the strictly genetic level of information, humanity is laughably ill-equipped to deal with its environment: Our claws are thin, our senses are dull, our teeth aren't terribly dangerous, we're not very strong, we're not very fast, and we hardly have any hair. And yet we survive and thrive due to our immense capacity for learning and communicating information. DNA is much too crude a mechanism for the transmission of this information. It was enough for it to provide the materials and workmanship for the neocortex, the outermost layer of our brains, to emerge. Here, the organism stores and transmits extragenetic information. To put our place in nature in the proper perspective: Reptiles have no neocortex to speak of in their tiny heads, while the neocortex accounts for 85 percent of the human brain.

Obviously, the neocortex confers a tremendous evolutionary advantage. It makes the organism, as well as the species, more resilient, able to learn and share new survival information fairly quickly, rather than wait centuries or millennia for the genes of great-grand-progeny to adapt. But despite the immense potential granted by the almost complete dominance of
the neocortex over the genes, we have continued to allow ourselves to be driven by our selfish genes for most of human history. Perhaps we've behaved like such brilliant barbarians because we have been deficient in some vital aspect of ourselves. Let us take a closer look.

Is there not something unique about humans that sets them a class apart from all other species? An animal that can teleport its physical form does not exist, but if it did, it would be unique in a more particular way than the mere fact of it being a separate species. That is, no other animal would possess the ability of teleportation. In the same way, humans can develop an elaborate cultural universe of their own, live within it, abide by it, and die for it, all without recognizing that it is ultimately only an estimation of the world. This degree of sociability is a trait not shared with any other species. Not even remotely.

So, to be social is to be directed toward others, to ultimately function as a larger group organism. This trait emerged, like everything, because it enabled survival. Its presence, however, introduced a contradiction in our genetic program. Like any other organism, we are selfish at our genetic core, and yet these same genes gave rise to a capacity to transcend themselves and evolve into the realm of the purely social. My own predicament notwithstanding, we simply cannot survive as lone humans.

The primary self-interest is validation from others, assurance that we are not alone. Our sociability is not optional, and we only survive at all because of each other. Yet our cooperation, in this era anyway, has been decidedly selfish. This has gotten us into our climactic fix, increasingly threatening our individual and collective survival. None can survive if everyone tries to be the fittest individual, but all can benefit if together we
try to build the fittest society. Thus is our evolutionary conflict. Which is ultimately more adaptive to survival: selfishness or sociability? To act social is to trust that each will act in one another's mutual interest. Obviously, such a thing cannot be achieved alone. To minimize our individual pain, we must come together. Anything less is no longer adaptive for individual or species survival, let alone happiness. And this requires a leap of nothing so simple as faith.

And faith? What is this nonsense? To whom are you being faithful in a leap of faith? If you wish to vault the chasm of eternal emptiness, you can only trust in yourself to carry you across in safety. It would be arrogant and foolish of you to race toward such an abyss without a studied concentration of effort, a perfect understanding of the steps necessary to accomplish such a feat. Faith is not blind optimism, it is honest determination. And yet faith is not the proof required by reason. Faith is the genuine trust of intuition.

Think of it this way: The classic way to throw a billiard partner off his game is to ask him what he does with his right arm when he shoots his cue. Preoccupied with pointless analysis, he is thrown off balance, and the cue stick feels awkward in his hand. Similarly, athletes achieve their greatest potential when they cease thinking about what they are doing, when their actions become so perfect that their movements flow through them rather than from them. In the same way, making the leap to trust requires opening your door, shedding your pretensions, your self-consciousness, and presenting your soul unabashed to the world. This is a leap of faith. Faith is not belief in God. Faith is the awareness that you
are
God.
Namaste
.

The problem, oh Invisible Risibility, is that we are not human enough. We are the only species that can laugh, yet far too much of our modern lives were spent actively not laughing—griping, complaining, stressing, arguing, despairing. We spent our time in the false comforts of primitive consciousness and all the jealousy, anger, and hate it implied. Though we remained boastfully ignorant, we are in truth far more intelligent than we led ourselves to believe. We are humans, the clever monkeys, and we possess the tremendous potential to shape not only our selves, but our entire world. Why settle with the hand-me-downs of the past when we can do so much better?

I am nothing but what you think I am. You are nothing but what I think you are. Thus are we linked, for better or for worse. We are nothing but each other. Before the Pied Piper came prancing along, it did not require paranormal abilities to predict the future of our species. A horrifying apocalypse was not our destiny. It would have become apparent that the planet did not fear our vanity, and the universe did not care one speck of stardust whether we lived or died. We would have learned that our future, and the lives we lead, were wholly up to us. We would have recognized our potential and directed our own destiny, or we would have perished.

The future, as our best prophets have always said, is love (or that which the overuse of the word fails to express). This is a certainty. Regardless of everything, our species will eventually go where it must. There is no other conceivable future for the simple reason that if we do not learn to love, we will surely die away, individual agonies in a collective nightmare. That could be the climax of the human story, and that is why the future is
so certain. There is no future in death and destruction. If we cease to exist, then the future ceases to exist as far as we are concerned, and all speculation necessarily becomes moot.

Things are not as complicated as we think. Which would you rather do, hoot and howl or harrumph and growl? Which would you rather do, twist and shout or maim and kill? The choice is as clear and easy as that. Everything else is just static. Tune your Self in.

Humanity is a wild species, daring and reckless, playing the highest stakes, risking extinction. We are the nuts dangling from the tips of the petioles in danger of falling off the Tree of Life altogether. But not to worry in any case. Perhaps a tumble is necessary for us to leave the bad habits of the past behind.

After all, it may be only after we fall that we can flower.

 

153
This chapter is purely academic. I include it only because I sense a logical incongruity in my own reasoning. Feel free to skip it and get back to the action, but if you're up for it, try to follow me on this.

Evolution is dependent upon error; mutations drive evolutionary change. If, as I have argued, culture represents the next layer of evolution, then miscommunication is the equivalent of mutation. In other words, miscommunication drives evolutionary change at the cultural level. If this is correct, then it is precisely our
mis
communicative powers that have allowed our species to adapt so efficiently and so quickly to our environment. Consequently, if the Pied Piper virus perfects human communication, as it indeed appears to, then it seems to follow that the human species has in fact lost its greatest evolutionary
advantage. What is worse, and despite all the happy dancing, we are apparently left to rot in paralytic stasis and stagnation.

This is a delightful contradiction. How can I, a molecular biologist, cheer for the end of evolution? My answer, which satisfies me completely, is simply that evolution has not, in fact, ceased. Rather, evolution has merely reached a new level. In the same way that the evolutionary shift from the genetic to the cultural carried with it a tremendous leap in the rate of change, the shift from the cultural to the God-knows-what must carry with it a similarly exponential leap, a million-trillion titters and teehees coalescing into one gigantic guffaw. I am talking about a transcendental quickening, an eschatological escape into a higher state of being where we evolve all but instantaneously. Beyond language, there are no cultural habits of thinking to slow us down. We evolve in immediate response to all new stimuli, asymptotically attaining a fractal Truth where we see that all is one and we can do no greater good than to observe the universe and ourselves at play.

But it is not quite so simple as this. Coming from such a prudish culture, I have overlooked one crucial component of evolution: sex. Miscommunication may be equivalent to mutation, but communication is equivalent to sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction mixes new patterns of genetic traits together, increasing the likelihood of a species remaining well adapted to its environment. In the same way, communication mixes new concepts and ideas together.

Sadly, however, most communication is akin to bad sex. Do you know what sex feels like? Admittedly, I myself have but a vague recollection, but I nevertheless remind you that sex, good sex, is, as they say, orgasmic. That is what evolution feels like. Do
you know what communication feels like? Nothing like sex, I don't have to assure you. Impotent and dry, flaccid and frigid, brief and unsatisfying, our linguistic intercourse leaves much to be desired. But then along pranced the Pied Piper, mooning and shining and flashing the world, and communication suddenly became perfect. Empathic communion, then, must feel heavenly.

Hmm. It occurs to me that if my analogy is correct, then we are having sex right now. How awkward. I apologize if our encounter has been less than fantastic. It is a limitation of language. Talk to me on the far side of the Pied Piper virus and I'll show you a good time. But perhaps I stretch this allegory too far. Or perhaps I've been celibate for far too long.
Caveat lector
.

I'm bored. I wonder what everyone else is doing. The Pied Piper virus has surely touched all but a few handfuls of humans on this planet by now, and in time it will tickle every last one of us. I wonder how the experience of life has changed. Do they just dance forever in postapocalyptic merriment, eternally marveling at the miraculous devastation of it all? Not likely, but this is a question that I cannot answer. I can no more answer it than I can answer what happens after death. I can say that I have witnessed no mourning over the culture and civilization that has been lost. Quite the contrary, I have seen nothing but unconditional and unrestrained joy at what has been gained. Like death, it is only those who are still alive who would mourn. For the dead, this world surely fades as quickly as a dream.

Think about this: Etymologically, apocalypse comes from the Greek word
apokalyptein
, meaning “to uncover.” If this outbreak is really it, then what has such a merry-hearted apocalypse uncovered? Listen up. Hell comes from the Old English
word
helan
, meaning “to cover.” Do you understand what I'm saying? The Pied Piper virus is it! It has blown the lid off hell, freed us from prison, demolished the delusion of separateness, and put our species where we properly belong. Humans are back, and our destiny holds nothing you or I can possibly imagine, not in our wildest, most far-out reveries, for our destiny lies further than the imagination itself.

Well, this is all chuckles and cheers, but what of our drama, our excitement, our intrigue, mystery, and espionage? What of it? Are our lies really worthy of such lamentation? Must we romanticize deception and glorify war? We've had a few cliffhangers, sure, and maybe they're fun, but life is too often lackluster and lonely. To pule, pine, whimper, and whine over the loss of a perverse fascination with our own pitfalls is the worst kind of self-obsessed navel-gazing.

Of course, what else can I do? There is no sense in grieving over my lack of hyperawareness and empathy. I am what I am, with nothing better to do but what I do. If I'm in prison, why should I grieve over the open fields I believe to exist just past the concrete wall topped with razor wire? I should revel in the glory of the sunshine I have, perhaps marvel at the nest an enterprising and daring cardinal built suspended in the barbs. And yet, simply because I can enjoy watching an anthill in the prison yard doesn't imply that I wouldn't enjoy traipsing naked through rolling hills of wildflowers more. But remember, in prison, I only imagine these wildflowers to exist—sort of a nostalgic premonition. Who knows what experiences actually lie on the other side? How can I hope to compare them to what I know on this side? On the one hand, there may exist a whole new level of experience just beyond that wall, with pleasures and aesthetics
that humanity's greatest artistic, linguistic, and musical manipulations only hinted at, mere signposts along the path to the garden of the gods and goddesses. On the other hand, there may be some mean bumblebees among those wildflowers, and I may be wishing I was back in prison, predictable and safe, playing with ants in the dust.