Every day, I leave work at around 4:30 to get my snack. I don’t get fruit, hells no. I get Hariboro gummy bears (a mockery of one of God’s creations) and I get Coke, flavored with thoroughly fake vanilla. I go back to work and sit in front of a computer, doing things that society pretends are completely essential, and if I remember, I pump myself full of a synthetic insulin compound to take care of all those fake-ass carbohydrates I’ve consumed.
I am a profoundly unnatural human being.
Let’s take some more examples. I live in a basement apartment where I don’t really get any sun, and where the air is strictly conditioned. Every day I squeeze into a metal tube and spend forty-five minutes reading a book from long before I was born. I only want meat if someone else kills it for me, and I’m not into raw. I’m also not that interested in well-done, like I’m eating a cow that fell into a volcano… nope, medium-rare, cooked to perfection, like they taught us in medieval France. And just to be clear, I don’t mind fruit from time to time, but it’s gotta be the right piece, carefully selected, first by the farmer and then by my own strict (though undeveloped) sense of judgment. If a caveman ate a plum from my shopping cart, he probably wouldn’t recognize it as bounty of the earth.
I gave up on a “natural course” long ago, maybe back when I was born and had to be cut out of my mother and infused with antibiotics. When people advocate a return to nature, I wonder what they mean by that; the only real meaning I can discern for “natural” is untreated and untouched, taken from some unknown region of Appalachian country, still fully populated by those effects of competitive wildness: colonies of protozoa, bird footprints, and worms that found this feast before I did.
Is this what these people mean? I’ve always had some issues with this question. What really separates a “natural” ingredient from an “artificial” one? It seems that there’s such a distinction, because Sunny Delight has to list both on their label, whereas Tropicana gets to claim one to exclusivity. Yet, if chemical compounds aren’t derived from nature, and from the possibilities proffered by the Earth and its elements, where are we getting them? Is a VERY intelligent scientist using his powers of transubstantiation to manifest these chemicals? If bisexuality and aspartame are aberrations from some profound earthly order, is the human mind, with all its strange ideas and paradoxical self-awareness, such an aberration as well? I’m still a little lost in the space between “natural” and “artificial,” but the rest of the world is ready to accept such a distinction, so I’ll buy into it for the moment.
Article comments
1 - Dr Dreadful
Many really good points made here: thanks for the link. I guess I didn't see it before because I mostly look at the Politics section... my bad.
The argument can be (and often has been) made that humans no longer live in nature because we have the ability to modify and control it to our own ends until it's unrecognizable.
2 - Jesse
Haha, thanks for swingin' by, Doc. I don't know why I felt the need to plug my goofy Nature rant in another thread. At any rate, I appreciate your checking it out.
3 - Dr Dreadful
Well, it illustrates a relevant point. For instance:
A: Homosexuality is unnatural!
B: And the toasted bologna sandwich you're eating isn't?
4 - Nancy
ROTFLOL-! this is a great article, funny yet makes a lot of good points. Well written, too. I thoroughly enjoyed it; it provides lots of (unnatural) food for thought. Thanks!
5 - Cindy D
Nature shmature. Who needs it?
What kind of system would pick the survival of a WWF wrestler over that of, say, Stephen Hawkings?
Your use of the phrase neo-liberal economics makes me feel less alone in the world.
This was a delightful read, peppered with artificially flavored tidbits to ponder, written in a refreshing style. Thank you for the link.
"...we all choose our own worlds, and when we choose the Gods of those worlds, we need to know what they stand for..."
If you haven't already read it, I think you might like Harlan Ellison's, Deathbird Stories. The quote I took from your article could be a subtitle for this compelling collection of short stories.
6 - Ray Ellis
Better yet, read Ellison's novella "Deathbird," in which Ellison proposes that Eden's Serpent was the victim of bad press,among other things.
By the way, I actually enjoyed this piece. Good work, the caliber of which I'd like to see more in these pages.
7 - Jesse
All I've read by Harlan Ellison was I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which was gruesome, but definitely powerful. One of the more convincing, more terrifying accounts of posthumanism that I've read.
I'll definitely check these other ones out. From what I've read, Deathbird Chronicles sounds Neil Gaimanish with a darker spin. The Deathbird novel actually sounds like an idea I tossed around in my head for a while, and tried to write as a short story toward the end of college. It's tough to hack a good biblical reconstruction, so I'd like to check out Ellison's.
Thanks for the suggestions!
8 - duane
Nice article, Jesse. A couple of things:
Although the elements that compose various chemicals are indeed of Nature (synthesized in stars), many chemicals (about 70,000 of them) are not. The very intelligent scientists have figured out ways to make truly artificial chemicals. So Nature is thrown a curve ball, but she learns quickly in her role of overseer as those manmade chemicals interact with the otherwise natural environment, such as our bodies, and the oceans, and the atmosphere, and trees, and fruitbats.
I'm all for humans having dominion over Nature. Great things will come to future generations (if we can get over all the infighting). I think people who want to go back to "simpler times" know not what they ask.
We have, to some extent, "transcended our biological need to rape and devour." I think it's more accurate to say that we have learned to control or redirect many of our impulses. But this is not tantamount to conquering Nature. Our higher brain functions, which we have used to discover ethics and cooperation and technology are products of Nature (unless you believe in Creationism of something equivalent). So, it's really not quite on the mark to say "Nature shmature" (#5). We strive to control or, at least, take advantage of Nature, but we will always be "of Nature" (unless you believe in God or something).
9 - Cindy D
What I hate about nature is what nature has created. There are no words more meaningful to me than those of Sartre, in his dialogue from NO Exit, "Hell is other people."
If I believed in a God, then I suppose that is what I would hate that God for, His creations.
What is most interesting to me about your post, is that where I normally feel obliged in most forums to hide my atheism. I, instead, feel embarrassed at my deep-seated wish for a God.
10 - duane
Yes, Cindy, but all in all, "God" has created a beautiful universe. We have evolved to find beauty in certain aspects of our world. We are all capable of sensing beauty and wonder in one way or another. Aesthetics. Very mysterious.
Your wish for a true and actual God is extremely common. I think even a lot of professed believers are in that position. There are a lot of unhappy and/or unfulfilled people out there battling out the day to day. They are wishing for something. Maybe they're wishing for the wrong things.
11 - Jesse
Cindy, I can understand both your desire for God and your revulsion at that desire.
If it was suddenly proven to me that there is a conscious (semi-personified) mind at work directing the universe, and I had the right to pass moral judgment, I don't know what judgment I would render. At the very least, I'd need an account of all the weird and ugly shit that the world seems to spit out as it rolls along.
Oxford: What if God is just a dude?
However, a conscious creator/director of the universe never made much sense to me. If there was an absolute authority on right and wrong, then I don't know why they would allow "wrong" to have such a big place in the global equation.
I have faith that there's a "higher power," but it's not God. That word is a disservice, a crude anthropomorphization. Whatever principles of order are out there governing the universe, they're not normative or goal-oriented. Morals are beautiful and powerful things, but they're man-made, the product of reason and intuition, like a great work of art. Our values start with our grandparents and end with our grandchildren... any appeal to divine justification is a form of hubris.
Thanks for sharing your ideas on faith in the world of reason. It's rare I get to hear such candid accounts.
12 - Cindy D
I'd like to read what is at your link Jesse. But, it doesn't seem to work.
13 - Christopher Rose
I've fixed Jesse's link so it works now.
14 - Christopher Rose
er, except the NYT requires registration. Grrr!
15 - Dr Dreadful
Chris:
Try this.
16 - Cindy D
Christopher Rose, Thank you! The linked worked. (Sort of like the sun worked this morning. Technologically savvy people inspire awe in me.)
Jesse, I loved "The Garden". Charon as the subway conductor. A little apple makes a difference in the Big Apple. Let me know if you have any more stories. Have you published that one?
If God is a guy running a simulation program what happens if he has a computer glitch?
Duane, Oddly, in my first post I edited out a comment that didn't seem to fit. It was about loving the beauty of nature. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. There is profound beauty in nature and in man's creations and achievements as well. I am drawn to mystery and beauty. These things redeem both nature and man for me.
17 - Jesse
Cindy, thanks for the feedback. That story was "published" in my college's literary magazine, and it won a prize, but that doesn't count for much, since it was only a campus-wide thing (and probably only 10% of campus ever took an interest in it).
There are a few other stories on the writing section of my website (writing.miksimum.com), and I've actually written 15 or 20 others, but they're all lingering on my hard drive as I look for literary magazines that will publish them. It's a much harder job than I expected.
My e-mail address is on the website above; feel free to get in touch directly if you've got more interest in reading/writing/whatevs. Thanks again for the commentary!