Dear Charles,
I find myself thinking about your theory of evolution and your notions on natural selection a lot these days. To tell the truth, I’m more perplexed than ever. I just can’t fathom how we all derived from a common ancestor, someone or something who crawled out of the primordial muck millions of years ago. A hippo and a hummingbird? An octopus and an orangutan? Krill and kangaroos? Republicans and Democrats? Really? There is so much that is unique about life on this planet that I can’t figure out how there could possibly be a common ancestor. How did we ever get here?
When your theories stump me, my mental pendulum swings to the other side of the great debate. To the Genesis story; you know the one I mean: how God made all this happen in six days, and then was so spent that He needed to rest on the seventh. Simple as that story seems, it’s equally implausible to me, so I lie awake at night, tossing and turning, trying to figure it all out.
And I can’t.
I wish I could have been with you aboard ‘The Beagle’ on your voyage to the Galapagos back in 1835. It took you four years to get there, and maybe during that time you would have helped me understand this conundrum. I’m not saying I would have been able to wrap my mind around all the great mysteries you were unraveling, but it would been worthwhile listening to you as you moved closer and closer to your truth. Maybe if I had been there with you, I could have asked you the questions that bang around in my mind today, and you would have been able to calm the storm. You seemed quite capable of swimming against the tide in your time, so my simple questions would have posed no threat to your genius. I imagine you might have given me and my questions a moment’s thought, and then would have made it all so simple that even a monkey up in a tree could understand.
I realize that after all these years, this letter arrives on your doorstep out of the blue. Sorry about that. I can’t even explain to you why I’m writing this to you now. Maybe because it’s a new year and there’s a lot going on in the world these days that’s hard to comprehend. Maybe if I had a firmer grip on evolution, I’d have a clearer image of where we’re heading. But the truth is, the future is as murky to me as the past. So I’m hoping you can help me make better sense of where we came from because if you could, then maybe I’d feel better about where we’re headed.
Did you see all this coming? When you were first observing those swimming iguanas and those blue-footed boobies and beginning to formulate your ideas on changing genetic traits that would lead to new speciation, did you have any inkling that maybe we were on the road to extinction? That just as there was a cataclysmic beginning to life on this planet, so would there someday be an inevitable end? Or is there another conclusion, one that offers a happier resolution to the unfolding drama of life on our planet?
If there is, please get back to me before the Iowa caucuses. I don’t understand that mess either.
With thanks,
Jamie
PS: I’ll be right back
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His new novel “This Salted Soil,” a new children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” and two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”), are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.
Michael Davis says
I enjoyed this essay, and my picking on one nit should not distract from the fact that it is a good thoughtful read.
No reputable biologist today would say we evolved from one thing – the one critter that is the mother of all critters. From the beginning, all life has been muts. Now even Neanderthals can claim us as off-spring. Somewhere in the dim past, a pre-Republican and a pre-Democrat must have mated, as did something with orange hair, as now we have it all.
I don’t know if Darwin predicted our extinction. He certainly knew the vast majority of species went extinct. Maybe not our horseshoe crab? And he knew we are a species, so therefore Mother Nature on her own will probably do us in. But we are impatient. We humans seem to be a rare type of species that is intentionally changing the environment to make ourselves extinct. That is downright weird, as are the Iowa caucuses.
One bit of good news. Although that ship has sailed, you can buy a “Beagle” tour T-shirt so everyone can think you were there.
Jamie Kirkpatrick says
Thank you, Mr. Davis. I like this comment a lot!
LK says
Jamie, This is a great article on where did we come from, why are we here and where are we going? I had all of those same questions as a young person. I always had a deep inkling that there was a high power. As a child I would talk to God even though I had not been taught about God….it was like I just knew. It was when I got older and people would start saying other ways they thought we got here, theories. I looked long and hard and honestly the proof I found was in the Bible. It was a “magical” book! Not in the mystic kind of way but in the way that 44 different authors, over 100’s of years, who did not have electricity, phones, internet, snail mail or most even a pen or paper all said the same thing. Most of these authors hadn’t met or read one another’s writings. It is truly a miracle! Have you done research on the Bible and its authenticity? That is where you will find the answers to your questions. Start with who wrote the Bible and when and where. Then READ my friend!
Steven A Smith says
I read a quote somewhere this month, perhaps in The Week, “We’re all just big apes with money and guns.” And, with the development of AI, will probably be less concerned soon with being perfect. I mean, why try, when we have a pet machine to cover for us. Which opens the debate about whether we could slip and slide to actually become slugs once more. Like, Return to the Origin.