Moving On

Tread carefully on this overdone entry...However, it is the 150th year anniversary of the book by a great man of philosophy and science, Charles Darwin, called The Origin of Species. What makes us different from creatures? Yes, we mastered the wheel, have opposable thumbs, and are able to engineer masterpieces which peak into the realms of heaven. However, these are afterthoughts. Bits of our being which rendered to the surface on the tails of our cornerstone creation. Humanity broke tradition serving millennia and became uncomfortable with the preset purpose. All animals have one genuine goal and that is to have a bi-product with its DNA and the process isn't too bad either. Arctic birds spend months protecting their potential offspring. Salmon swim a ferocious path for a quickie and then punctually die. Any National Geographic reading glutton is well aware of these biological marvels. The boundaries of man's intellect and even philosophical stature warped beyond the plane of comfort where a little bald blob that has his nose satisfied the empty weight. Some search out a monetary filler in the quest for the unholy dollar. Others take the “In God We Trust” and sanctify purpose through a higher power in church. Ugandans flock to this ideal looking for paradise past the present world. They sing, sweat, and pray for hours to days in mud brick churches with a small wooden cross directing eyes to the front as the only decoration. We may use those Darwin spawn to instill the ethics and beliefs we've reveled through year after year in some skewed, lazy, hybrid embodiment of purpose and seed. A small few of us find meaning in the strings of a newly acquired view of humanity. Now we may take different streets on the endeavor, God, atheism, or even a touch of transcendentalism if they're feeling kinky, but the idea of purpose seeping beyond our own orb of "self" glimmers through. Salvation for our continued being is not sought through a physical conjuring of our own existence, but instead find answers in the positive impacts of others. No matter our solemn stand on the spectrum, once we crept past animal instinct we were destined to become addicts. The simplicities of sex and fertility could no longer be the sole answer. A taste of the unknown stirs a frenzy and unfortunately, the first hit is always free.