Chicxulub Crater

If the story of evolution is really written in our cells there must be a trace of the dinosaur saga, the dragons tossed into the lake of fire, I’m guessing.

What are you babbling about, old man?

For those who read the logos of Gaia, Earth tells a story of violence and trauma and I wonder if that story is also written in our molecular being?

The tiny brains in hairy heads of primates huddled in caves evolved to resist dinosaur tyranny. Our ancestors fought and competed with each other but also learned to cooperate, communicate, make plans and change plans, strategize, and don’t mourn, organize, and be more or less better prepared for the next catastrophe, the next stone thrown by God at our home planet.

Does the impact of that collision continue to send shockwaves through time? 

The story of the asteroid that assaulted the planet 66 million years ago and killed nearly everything and all the big reptiles and only the small survived and the memory of that disaster of disasters, the impact of impacts, is encoded in our codes as at least a foreboding that one day the sun will not rise, maybe, and cosmic disaster happens in our cosmos — asteroids and planets and even galaxies collide and where can you hide, in this mess?

Well, I don’t worry about it. Asteroids are in the category of things I pray to accept because I can’t change. I worry about my own fossil record. Maybe I don’t even worry about that. Leave it to others to deal with the disposal of my life’s work after I’ve left. Leave it to the Lawrence Swan scholars of the future. If there are any scholars in the future, or any minds that read and think.

Haven’t you heard? They figured out how to make an asteroid change course, so it’s not hopeless for the mammals of Earth, if another one comes our way. We can make an asteroid change course, changing human minds is trickier.

Did you know that the big nations, the dinosaurs of our day, the UN Security Counsel, got together a year ago and formally agreed that nuclear war is un-winnable and absolutely a no-no, and then immediately began waving their missiles at each other and threatening to — what?

No, the human dinosaurs didn’t agree to never use their nuclear weapons, in fact, they agreed that nuclear weapons could be used “defensively:” 

“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the statement reads. “We also affirm that nuclear weapons – for as long as they continue to exist – should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war,” they said.

This is the “only a good guy with a nuclear weapon can stop a bad guy with a nuclear weapon” theory of peace.

They say a heap of matter organized itself and began to dream and so the universe was born and here we are. I don’t know. I wake up anxious about whether I am doing my part for the universal restoration.

What are you babbling about now, old man?

“You know Tyrannosaurus Rex was destroyed before by a furry little ball that crawled along the primeval jungle floor and stole the eggs of the dinosaur.”

That ain’t science.

No, it’s from Blows Against the Empire, Paul Kantner.

Omigod, your hippie music again.

Yeah, so here I am, an elder primate who has managed to survive this long in my shelter, and I’m taking notes. I would like it if even a fragment of what I wrote would be worth reading 66 million years from now, or even 66 minutes from now, or right now, as I read this to you, on a winter night, primate siblings huddled in the electronic space of our Zoom room learning to listen to each other.