Grimm’s Thesis
Once upon a time in the state of Cosmos, in the musical town of Universe, on the street called Milky Way, there lived a family named System. In that family there was a daughter named Gaia, a precocious child with beautiful, watery blue-green eyes. When asked how old she was, Gaia replied, “I am 4.7 billion years old. That means I am almost five. But I might not make it to six because I have a very bad cold. I have had it for the last 60 million years or so.”
Her siblings would laugh at Gaia, mocking her. “A simple cold will never kill you. Stop being a baby.”
The cold had started because Gaia had a Drake. Her father and mother told her to let the Drake alone, but rather than let the Drake be, Gaia flexed her plates over and over–as some precocious children are apt to do–until the Drake tore apart. Her family watched in silence. It was wrong to fight Universe’s City Hall and its music.
Gaia didn’t care. She felt much better.
With Drake’s passage–Gaia’s temperature dropped further, by almost 7 Kelvin. That’s when Sol called a meeting of the family and their pet rocks.
“Let’s keep a close eye on Gaia and do what we can do,” counseled the mother.
For the next few million years, they monitored Gaia, becoming more and more concerned. The family began trying various ways to raise Gaia’s temperature. None of their schemes proved successful, because none of the results led to long term warming for Gaia.
Her temperature began to oscillate, going up and down every 110,000 years or so. Dark curls of concern popped from Sol’s face. The family said nothing as Sol examined the patterns determining that the spirited inanimate structures–favored by the family to cure Gaia–could not cure her. (Truth-be-known many around town criticized the System family for their belief in cause and effect and their overall lack of sophistication. Others just said their distance from any sizeable concentration of matter, or culture, was the problem. But that’s a different story.)
“New jeans (genes–ed–they will miss it) are the answer for Gaia. They have always been the answer,” A town Elder declared. “She requires a new species of mammals–a species of tool makers with no insight.”
It took no time for the family to see that Gaia needed a set of jeans fostering only limited intelligence–just enough to get rid of her cold. Of course, what those jeans eventually looked like and how the jeans would augment her temperature, thereby repairing her health, took some experimentation and patience.
Finally, Gaia was injected with a species containing designer jeans that would foster a driven mammal, hard-wired to its own destruction. As well, the human species would create, procreate, and make tools. “Something is missing from the Elders’ blueprint,” Saturn said. “Something to ensure success.” The family only confided to each other as they worked the problem. That feeling led to another must-have characteristic for this self-annihilating species with the big brain named human.
A huge ego.
“…An ego so tremendous it will foster an unquenchable need for his-story, as well as no charter to fathom existence, or relate to facts contradicting a sense of a privileged existence. With this,” Jupiter roared, “Humanity will see itself as the center of the Universe, feeling free to create and fester throughout Gaia’s facade for their own sake with an ego-lust above all else.” Jupiter glowed. He adored his father Sol and always wished to be like him. “They will create legend and text. Adding madness upon madness and call it progress. Through human ego, my sister Gaia will be cured and humans will arrive at their inevitable extinction.” He grinned. “Thanks to a hard-wired proclivity for destruction and the unending thirst of their ego, human ego will command both men and women. It will best critical thinking and virtues allowing evil people with maniacal egos to take control of their society, drown virtue in lies, and reward corruption. Ego will win. I guarantee it. Those fuckers are toast.”
With knowing smiles, the family saw the validity of Jupiter’s argument. Humans, because they are children of Gaia’s ecosystem, still must have no chance of seeing that the chaos taking over their planet was taking them over as well.
Jupiter added, “As Gaia’s re-energized climate warms up, human ego will ensure humans cannot see themselves as Gaia’s tools, insignificance, bacteria in a vast Cosmos.”
Even so, the family wanted more for Gaia. So they incorporated one more wall, the need for possession through ego laughingly calling it “Civilization.” One of Mars’ favorite words for blindness, this was his contribution to the strategy of healing Gaia. A strategy he knew had a flaw only he saw. Mars was secretly jealous of Gaia thinking she had been given too much–all because of her position in the family.
Humans conquered every arc of the planet creating civilizations on top of civilizations until they arrived at the goal–an overriding need to own the power that fuels their civilization. Wind led to wood led to coal. Engines led to combustion. Combustion led to fossil fuels. Gaia began to mend. The rise in her temperature–slow at first–accelerated.
Gaia’s mother finally left her daughter’s side to comfort her husband.
When she sees her husband’s dark spots have grown, it touches her. Then Sol explains. “We have an unforeseen consequence starting to occur in the new species. Humans, along with their hard-wired-destruction-syndrome have inadvertently used it to push creativity in a new direction: destroying the love-of-ego and its partner replication-as-fact, replacing ego with insight and clarity on the environment. A sense of place in their folly of self-importance has appeared. They call it art and literature,” Sol flares. “Some stray pet rock has poisoned our town. Its placement had escaped my notice.”
The dark spots on Sol’s face fosters a voice to her worst fears. “We may have been blocked.”
The following day, when Gaia is on the far side of the yard, Gaia’s mother asks the others what they think. Children being children they weep. Only Mercury, too devoted to her father and brother Jupiter, replies. “Mom, everything we see tells us ego will push Gaia’s heat balance up until Gaia is safe. That chaos then kills off the human parasite. You heard Jupiter, ‘Those fuckers are toast.’ Soon Gaia will be her normal happy self.”
Mother immediately births a plan to heal her daughter, Gaia.
After implementing her plan, Sol’s wife, Maga, seeks out her husband. “I’ve fixed it.”
Sol nods. “The child’s temperature is rising faster now. We’ve already gotten one of the three degrees we need to ensure her health. These last few years she’s been so much better.”
“We still need two degrees more to kill the humans off–are you sure?”
Sol warms his wife with a kiss. “Of course. Dear, just one more decade or so of sociopathic human leadership and our temperature goal will be unstoppable. Gaia will be fine.”
“I am out of ideas.” Maga makes sure her husband cannot hear her fears. “Okay. So just another decade to be sure the humans will go extinct. Okay. Okay.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.