Bugs rule

[vaneramos]

Scientists named it Vernanimalcula, "small spring animal," because it came with the end of the long winter of Snowball Earth. Six hundred million years ago the entire planet was covered with the greatest Glacial Age of all, so the evidence suggests. You wouldn't have had much fun exchanging snowballs with a microscopic sponge. If you had even been able to find one. In the deep sea vents, where hot water boils through the chasms. Or in the deserts, the dry air of Antarctica; yes, life can even evolve there. But we had nothing worth looking at except through microscopes.

And then the earth melted. The seas teemed with single-celled organisms. And Vernanimalcula evolved. We have found it in thin sheets of Chinese rock.

It had a mouth, a gut and an anus. That's all you need for people to consider you complicated; all you need to evolve.

It even came before Kimberella, another tiny creature that swept up ashes and donned a regal gown, running through the hallways of ancient seas, shedding glass slippers for modern-day princes and princesses to find with their scrutinizing eyes. Kimberella was not much of a record-breaker though, used to be the oldest, but then we saw through her shallow ambitions and frivolous laughter.

Why do flies land on their backs when they fall off the screen? I've never seen anything so clumsy or ridiculous, unless it was human. It lies there for a moment, just long enough for you to think you can squash it, then it's up and away again, leaving you sitting there on the toilet, staring plaintively at an empty window sill, peeling paint.

It takes bugs to get us thinking. What will this earth become? See that ungainly housefly? It's probably creative enough to survive the worst disaster we can bring upon us all. We're far more careless, inventing red buttons, purifying uranium and electing cowboy presidents. God, we are so stupid and think we're so smart. That's the scary part; that we think so much of ourselves. It's as if brains were invented just for the sake of arrogance. We think we can control the biggest accident bent on happening.

Viruses are bound to end this disaster. Can't you feel your keyboard humming, palpitating? They're inventing more and more diseases, not only to plague our lungs and hearts, but the head space we move through. Genetically modified grass can pollinate wild species 21 miles away. We're spreading our elaborations through all creation. A hacker can invent new viruses that your detectors won't detect. They're raising an army of zombie computers to attack government web sites. Attack the corporations.

Yeah, I would like to end the stranglehold of corporations, too. I don't think terrorist acts are the way to do it. The hackers are holding us all hostage, wasting our daylight moments with spam bacon sausage and spam.

I think I'll go look in the bottom of the ocean for a glass slipper before the spam turns green, viruses break out and consume my computer.

You know, they have invented a robot that can break into little pieces to move through rough terrain. On Mars, I suppose. Or maybe to move through my brain, that's pretty craggy, heights and depths I don't even want to talk about. These individual components can break apart, move around the obstacle and then put themselves back together, or go alone on a mission to see if Kimberella ever visited the moons of Saturn. She would have looked lovely there in her diaphanous protoplasm, sitting on the rings, raising a toast to Uranus.

But it isn't a pretty story. We're talking the depths of the ocean, and of human depravity, creativity turned to the dark side.

Comments

[writer00.livejournal.com]

This made for some very powerful reading. Thank you.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Intense ideas, I know. Don't mind me toying with them. :-)

[perkk.livejournal.com]

This one retains my interest even more than the others. Thank you for sharing! To solve some of these problems, we need more education and more effective communication. The Internet is nice, but it leaves most people thinking they have a voice, when mostly they are a isolated collections of like minded individuals. But I'm not cynical, not yet at least.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The internet is a good place to explore ideas. I would like to communicate more widely.

[perkk.livejournal.com]

I just don't suggest this (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/warhol.html) method...

Got your email

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Just a line to let you know I got your email. Hope you get mine back.

Sat. morning works fine for me, but it is supposed to be excellent weather this a.m. and you may just want to get an early start.

hugs, Shimmer

Re: Got your email

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Hey, try my new Gmail account. It is just my full name without any spaces or punctuation. The surname is Waffle, in case anyone could forget. Then gmail dot com.

[lotuspoet.livejournal.com]

Very beautifully written and right on!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm glad you can relate to these ideas. Hope you're doing fine!