When I was a kid, I wanted to be a plant, mostly influenced by reading this book.
Like the boy in the story, I wanted to discover a formula that would unlock the key to human photosynthesis, so that no one would ever go hungry again, and so that we would never, ever have to harm any other life form for any reason.
I wanted to stick my feet in the dirt, and share the ground with the worms and bugs, and say, "Hey Mr. Bug, don't worry, I'm not going to harm you. Let's be friends." And the squirrels and birds would live in me and make nests on me and conceive babies in my leaves, and crap on me, but hey man, who cares? I'm a tree.
Someday, will science fulfill my dream, with solar power across the landscape, and stick my brain in a cyborg box, like Nixon on Futurama? Will I live forever as a man/machine symbiote, harnessing nourishment from the sun? Do the prophets and heavens and aliens, the warmongers and peaceniks, the meek and the strong, only have a chance at tranquility when we cast off the shackles of our locomotion and gullet?
Though I'm sick of the cliche, I'm also equally sick of being the scorpion.
No comments:
Post a Comment