Human beings are born helpless. This is due to the unreasonable size of our heads. They are too big. It is already all a woman can do to express one in the natural manner. The baby, having been so delivered into the outside world, is nonplussed, perhaps somewhat angry, and totally helpless.
Horses, on the other hand, are born from an altitude of about three feet and, upon falling to the ground, almost immediately stand up and start to walk around. The mare nudges the already substantial beast, and soon he is moving faster and kicking a bit with his hind legs, to get the feel of things. Before long, he can almost keep up with the other horses. Which is a good thing, because horses are prey animals in many of the habitats that they call home. The predators are hungry. Predators are always hungry, and doubly so when they smell a birth in the area.
Horses do need the assistance of a mother, for nourishment, and a herd, for protection. Humans, however, need orders of magnitude more assistance from a whole team of adults. We need to be carried around for at least one year! It will require at least one additional year before we can successfully guide a spoonful of food into our own mouths. Thus, the existence and importance of families.
I often wonder, or “have wondered,” because it's not so often anymore, how the baby feels about all of this. The temperature has suddenly dropped by about twenty degrees F, for one thing; where did that light come from? Oops, I'm upside down; what is that smacking my feet? Now there's a new sound, and it's coming from me! Now I'm being passed around like this is a game of some kind! That blanket feels good. Thanks for that. Something is missing...oh, there it is. I'd know that heartbeat anywhere. This could all be worse, I suppose. Why can't I see anything but white light?
It doesn't always go that smoothly. Luck is involved, right from the beginning.
Then, immediately, you find yourself at the big-stakes table. One hand, and you're all in, no questions asked. The hand is dealt. Five cards, no draw. You are now part of a family. You may be dealt any hand that it is possible to create with fifty-two cards, and you are stuck with that hand for the rest of your time on earth. You may either grow up and go on to have a happy family of your own, or you may run away and become a carny at age fourteen. You may experience love and security throughout your upbringing, or you may be treated badly by people who are so far short of loving that they can't even see it from where they are. You may appreciate your lot in life, or you may die of an overdose in a filthy stairwell, or both! Whatever comes to pass, you will carry the residue of your family in your veins as long as their blood runs inside of you.
This is the part where I generally start to complain, but I'm not in the mood for complaining today. I look around me and I see too much misery. I see too much block-headed stupidity from people in positions of great authority. I see people who were dealt a full-house, aces over tens, and still they complain because someone else got the four ladies.
How can I complain when we are now, for the first time since the ice age, together, every man, woman, boy and girl, together on the same train? Destination, “Doom on the Express Track.” And it's such a shame, because as I look around I see only problems susceptible of solution. I see, for the first time ever in our history, as plainly as the nose on my face, that our world, and our people, possesses all of the money, talent, and resources necessary to straighten out every mess that we find ourselves in. But I know for an absolute certainty that it will not happen.
The Family of Man is doomed, because it will not let go of corruption, it will remain mired in the Rasputitsa of self-interest. We will continue to be ruled by the graspers, the robbers, and those disinterested in anything outside of themselves, unless it is something that could enrich them.
Our situation longs to be poignant, but really it's only pathetic.
No comments:
Post a Comment