Charles Darwin was the original environmental tourist. Instead of kayaking around the Alaskan Fiords
and selling the footage to National Geographic he, famously, hitched a ride on
HMS Beagle.
This was not a cruise and the Beagle was not a cruise
liner. Instead imagine if you will,
Hornblower with added disease, poor diet and a muscle controlled, wind driven
wooden ship. This was only a few years
after the end of the Napoleonic Wars [final score England 1, France 0] and the
Royal Navy was once again looking for ways of staying at sea. Oceanography was one of the ways it achieved
its aim and taking Darwin as a passenger, officially as the captain's
companion, was one of the ways of defraying the costs involved.
From his observations, intelligence and many years of
careful study and hard work, it is mostly to this man that we owe the concept
of evolution, famously the concept of the survival of those best fitted to
their environment. Those of you who
disagree with this conclusion may stop reading now, but given the currency of
the concept well beyond biology I'd venture to guess that even a Creationist
can go with the idea of there being a purpose to life incidental to our own
aims.
So what purpose do we serve?
Let's leave aside all the dualism that the Middle Ages have wished upon
our modern world. I'd not deny the
concept of a 'spiritual life' but the idea to my mind really applies to the
fact that somewhere in the 1.5 kilos of brain, or about 1.7% of my overall
mass, there lurks something I refer to as 'me'.
Those who wish to identify this as a soul may go have coffee with St.
Augustine of Hippo at this point. You
won't like the rest of this. If the
purpose of life is to breed enough to bequeath one's genes to the next
generation, then as far as evolution is concerned, I'm dead. After four children there is no further
purpose to my life and the species is, frankly, done with me. Finished.
So yesterday. Come to think of it
I'm not too struck on that idea myself.
But whilst being on the evolutionary retired list may be a bit of a
comedown, it is at least quiet around here, giving one time to think.
Here's what I think: Romanticism, committed partnerships,
'The One'. Are they all ways of sugaring
the pill? Do we want to invest any time
in something irrelevant to the perpetuation of our genes because it really
doesn't matter anymore? So we invest it
all with a rose-tinted view of the world because whilst copulation may thrive,
it's served its purpose.
Oh how depressing.
But wait! That's not all! What about those of us who don't have any
genetic inheritors? If you're childless,
what does that imply about your purpose?
That's an interesting stick with which to beat the childless by choice,
mistake or inability. Luckily, I don't
believe any of this nonsense, but I've set it out as well as I can to get to
the actual purpose of this piece.
Wait? This has a purpose? Er,
well, yes.
My contention is that we are all too willing to personalize something
which has no discernable independent existence whatever. There is no 'force of evolution' in the way
there is a force of gravity. We live in
a gravity field, but not in an evolutionary field. We may be inclined to breed, but not with a
view to perpetuating our genes. Being
nothing more than a container for chromosomes is reducing to the absurd. Families are about far more than children,
parenthood is as much about me working out my own father fixations as it is in
the celebration of my children's life and growth. But for
those of you who see some divine purpose to your lives, I'd say you're
as misguided as the behaviorists who want us to be puppets of a blind
watchmaker. The only easy answer is,
there are no easy answers. That is
probably the core of my personal philosophy.
In addition, you may as well relax and enjoy the ride. We're here for the duration so accept the
opportunity for entertainment. You can
and probably will find your own answers to life, the universe and everything. My answer is, the Universe doesn't care if you
do or not because it isn't any more sentient than your sock and yes, Gaia can
bugger off too.
