Harry the Human: 2024

Hey folks! Here I am, the only gila monster in Bangkok International Airport, concealed in the carry-on of my human buddy, Doug, using his one-hour free wi fi to give my final report on this journey. What a journey it was! My original purpose was to convey greetings from the god of Funeral Peak in Death Valley, InsertHere, to his cousin, Tab B, in the Bhutanese Himalayas (keep reading for more on the unusual names), but it turned out they didn't have much to say to each other beyond a conventional "Hello." My real foreign friend was a distant relative of my kind, the tokay gecko, in the mountains near the famed Tiger's Nest monestary. His name is...I'll try to spell it in Engish letters: Ke-ke-ack-a-grrrrp. He explained to me that the term "tokay" is an onomatopoeic representation of its mating call. We had a congenial discussion of the contrast between us, as my kind doesn't have a mating call; we go by smell. I secrete a pheromone that suggests to female gila monsters that a needy male is near, while meanwhile I sniff the ground in search of a pheromone suggesting a female who finds my message interesting. This is the wonder of travel: Meeting other cultures and discovering how for all our differences, we aren't so different after all!

The one-hour free wi fi is closing.

Doug and I rarely co-author, but we were in such alignment on Mindfulness City that we collaborated on this piece. Best, Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster

The proposed Mindfulness City in the south of Bhutan, endorsed by the king of Bhutan and attracting worldwide financial interest, achieves credibility from its connection to Bhutan. The promotional material describes a city incorporating the "green," ecologically sound design and philosophy touted, though missing, from the increasingly chaotic and dysfunctional major cities of the world. There is buy-in from many quarters, but if Mindfulness City were proposed for any other location, its emphasis on IT and vast sums of investment would inspire much skepticism and sarcastic characterization as a billionaire's paradise. We might have joined in such skepticism, but as we near the end of a ten-day tour of Bhutan, we find it hard not to feel that Mindfulness City deserves a chance. Bhutan is unlike any other country in the world. Nestled in the Himalayas between India and China, and subject to potential political pressure and conflict on a par with the tectonic forces that squeeze the Himalayas towards the heavens, the culture and, dare we say, the spirits of the land have evolved to deal with often uncaring forces of the cosmos. For instance, one feels a surprising unity here between working people and all levels of management, up to the king. There is also a unity of religion, through the mystical thought of Buddhism. Within that one religion are a variety of perspectives. Yesterday we meditated on a statue of "Wealth Buddha," seated in deep meditation, a cluster of currency in his hand. Making money is not "bad" in this morality, necessarily.

As I've made clear, I'm happy to spend the next two weeks on my front porch rocker staring at the San Gabriel Mountains, leaving this quixotic journey to my altered-ego D.L. (who will post about it on https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/) and his unexpected travelling companion, my later-in-life buddy Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster. I have no desire to accompany Robert, who finagled a free ride with D.L. and his skeptical wife, based on his insistence that he has been assigned a mission by the deity residing on Funeral Peak in our own Funeral Mountains near Death Valley (named Tab B - see below for more on the name) to commune with the mountain god (named InsertHere - see below) of Bhutan's highest peak, Gangkhar Puensum, hundreds of miles north of D.L.'s tour. How he will get through airport security, or deal with Bhutan's prohibition against mountain climbing (which is believed to disturb montain deities) is not my concern. I hereby turn over my blog to Robert, as his life has become more interesting than mine. Don't worry about me. I'll be continuing my regime of dreamy contemplation and frequent naps.

All the best, Harry the Human

I watch as day follows day in the desert, daring me to find meaning in the endless cycle. This morning I had some assistance on the "meaning" front from Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, who woke me at dawn with his signature scratching on my cabin door, which was of course accompanied by intrusive thoughts. This as I was trying to catch up on sleep after fitful impulses the night before had kept me awake until the wee hours. Here's the dialogue that ensued, hopefully with elements meaningful to the reader:

Robert: Harry, wake up! It's the end of the world!

Shortly after I read in the Pearblossom Gazette that a local troupe was putting on a production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at the Pearblossom Community Playhouse, I realized there was no point in trying to hide my excitement from Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, and indeed he came scratching at my door within minutes.

Robert: Don't even think about going without me! You know I love Theater of the Absurd!

Looking for something to read that's not an analysis of the Trump win? Try The god who masturbated the world into being on Lasken's Log at https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/.

"You never know what will happen next" is actually true these days. For instance, I didn't know that Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, who keeps me grounded in my self-imposed exile, would, late last night, claw at my door as agitated as I've ever seen him, though in an oddly optimistic way, his thoughts intruding: "Harry, wake up! Doug's going to Bhutan!" he buzzed through the airways (he was referring to my altered-ego Doug, author of Lasken's Log at https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/). Sitting in the confines of my living room, Robert relaxed and explained:

Robert: D.L. and his wife are going to Bhutan, leaving Thanksgiving day!

Oh brillig was the slithy tove

All mum with crap that he had sold

So on he went, as we are told

A goal in mind, a windy road

A nematode, but I digress

Our subject still a wilderness

Wherein such souls as look askance

At superficial happenstance

Can waddle in the cosmic dance

And ask the question should the chance

Present itself, or even not-

For questions ask their own true selves

Forgiving answers to themselves-

And truth be told I need more rhymes

Not once not twice but three more times!

I'm writing in response to some of my altered-ego D.L.'s ideas (expressed on Lasken's Log at https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/) in which he seeks to prove the existence of machinations designed to ensure that we walk into World War III with our eyes open, thinking we are awake though we are deep in a pre-scripted dream. As I gape at Doug's stamina in constructing proofs (or at least support) for his ideas, I can't help sitting on my rocker on the front porch of my desert abode, looking out over the baked Mojave and wondering if I should be sorry that long ago I stopped trying to prove things. Now when I argue with my frequent companion Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, he will barrel down on me for the slightest variance from his opinion, yet if he opposes mine, I just stop trying, frustrating him no end.

What is all this about "proving" things, anyway? It's not like we ever really prove anything. What if standard humans were telepathic and evolved to share ideas, to have them together at the same time, and to change our minds about those ideas together? I bet there would be no less certainty about reality than if aggressive humanoids invaded and started proving things.

[My desert companion Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster, in his fascination with the human race, has culminated a long study of Shakespeare with this cross-species emulation.]

How is't
though all we teach our young

be naught but dreams we teach ourselves
that we

in the throes of later-aged ambition

to be more upon the stage

than aged babes
(domestic ciphers, suckling, passive, small accounted in the public eye,
sweeping dust to dust and daily circling mile on mile)

in quiet contemplation

hidden watch the generations flow?

As everywhere impetuous glories

spill from young and restless minds
to cause calamitous clash

and magnificent ornament of the soul,

the children uprooted on life’s playground

by the rousing slap

and challenge of the intellect’s
swampy doubt

think not of quiet corners

but of noisy triumph on the field!

Demanding that we set aside

The limits of our scope

And take them on a joyous ride

Of certitude and hope

[This is a guest essay from my altered-ego D.L.'s blog, Lasken's Log: https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/.]

Early Hollywood films often featured cute baby chimpanzees who mimiced human behavior with infantile gestures, grimaces and clownish antics. But, although there are plenty of adult lions, elephants and giraffes in early movies, there are no adult chimps. Adults were retired to "reserves" far out of the city. Chimp handlers knew why, but the general public did not.

That changed over recent decades as a series of horrifying attacks by adult chimps on humans were reported in the media. Adults can weigh up to 200 pounds and are generally twice as strong as the average adult human male. The attacks entailed faces and genitals torn off, hands amputated and other targeted attacks that appeared designed, not necessarily to kill, but to permanently debilitate the victim both physically and psychologically. The victims typically were taken by surprise. Often the chimp had been raised by the victim from babyhood, or the victim might be a friend of the owner who knew the chimp well, or thought so. The trigger for many of the attacks appeared to be jealousy, or a sense of betrayal. One woman brought a birthday cake to a captive adult chimp (removed from her custody for dangerous behavior) in the company of two other chimps. One was so jealous of the cake that he bit off the womans lips and nose and destroyed one eye. A man who brought a toy to a chimp he knew lost his genitals when he tried to take back the toy. It is now illegal to own a chimp as a pet.

While our society was learning about the nature of adult chimps in captivity, scientists were learning about chimps in the wild. Search "chimp attacks in Africa" and you'll find beautifully shot narratives by producers like Discovery and Planet Earth-BBC Wildlife depicting a murderous species, often out to expand its territory. In one program, a band of five or six adult male chimps, led by its alpha male (the dominant male animal in a particular group- Webster) silently creeps through the forest, stalking a neighboring colony of chimps. The alpha, who not only determines the group's behavior but defines its virtues, deficits and moral tone, brings the group to a halt as the "enemy" comes within earshot. The males huddle together in intense, intimate concentration. The group attacks and manages to capture a baby chimp from the neighboring group, which they kill by pulling off its limbs, after which they sit in a circle, gnawing on the limbs and sharing them with each other.

More recently, the Netflix documentary "Chimp Empire," directed by James Reed, presented an intimate look at chimps interacting in which they appear surprisingly human. In fact chimps are our closest relatives. Human DNA differs from chimps' by only 1%. In contrast, human DNA differs from dogs' by 75%. The difference between apes (like chimps) and monkeys (like capuchins) is 7%, meaning that we are closer to chimps than chimps are to monkeys.

Chimps pre-date us by about 5 million years, so we are likely spin-offs from them, appearing about 300,000 years ago. Maybe it was the chimps who drove us from the forest.

[Note: Our DNA is likewise only 1% different from the chimps' nearest relation, bonobos. In the 70's and 80's, bonobos were touted as "flower-children chimps" because of their uninhibited displays of affection- including social conventions like handling each other's genitals or rubbing them together- and the lack of male combat. The hippie association was dropped after researchers noticed that many males were missing thumbs, which had been bitten off by females in this matriarchal alternative to chimp patriarchy.]

As with humans, not all chimps are murderous. A Discovery UK episode tells the story of two peaceable chimps, Hare and Ellington, who, though members of a large warlike group, spent their days together in tranquil strolls through the forest. One day Ellington was beaten and mauled to death by members of the group. Hare then wandered alone, depressed and distracted, finally finding his place taking care of baby chimps orphaned by his group.

Are we like chimps in behavior as well as DNA? A study of human history suggests that we are. Many anthropologists speculate that homicidal impulses in our ancestors explain the absence today of any other types of humans than our own. There is fossil evidence that there were other types of humans, notably Neanderthals and Denisovans. Genetic analysis indicates that we interbred with these humans, but we also witnessed their extinction. There is no evidence that we intentionally eliminated them (an action we would now term "genocide"), but the question remains, where are they?

We are proud of our hunting heritage, but unlike, say, lions, who after millions of years of hunting and eating impalas and giraffes have not caused the extinction of those animals, human prey tends to disappear. There is plenty of evidence that needless killing of fauna and megafauna has recurred throughout human history. One prehistoric example that is generally not noted in deference to a need to idealize early North American cultures (science writer Jared Diamond is one of the few to refuse this idealization) is that all large mammals on the North American continent- like giant ground sloths and wooly mammoths- disappeared shortly after the arrival of the first humans, 10,000-12,000 years ago. The later settling of the American West by Europeans provides further examples of animals slaughtered in numbers far exceeding people's need to eat them. When Europeans arrived in North America, passenger pigeons comprised up to 40% of the bird population, their migrations filling the sky. "Sportsmen" would fire straight up and revel when dozens of birds fell to the ground. From an estimated 3 to 5 billion pigeons when the Mayflower docked at Plymouth Rock, their numbers fell in two hundred years to zero. The American bison (commonly called the "buffalo") numbered around 30 million before Europeans came. Horace Greeley wrote in 1860 that, "Often, the country for miles in all directions had seemed quite black with them." The railroads sold tickets for bison killing excursions to New Englanders looking for adventure. When herds of bison ran across the prairies near the tracks, rifles were issued to passengers so they could shoot them from train windows. The train did not stop to recover the mounds of carcasses for any sort of use. Today the bison is designated "near threatened." "How the West was won" should be rephrased as, "How the West was cleared of lifeforms that suggested humans are not the dominant species."

Back to genocide- the modern term for humans intentionally killing (or attempting to kill) entire groups of other humans- we often treat it as a recent aberration stemming from Hitler (the term "genocide" was coined in 1944 by a Polish lawyer), but far from being unique to World War II, genocide- which continued after the war and is ongoing today- has occurred repeatedly since the dawn of humanity, starting, possibly, with the disappearance noted above of any other sorts of humans than us, the Denisovans going extinct about 80,000 years ago, the Neanderthals about 40,000.

Moving forward, there is archaeological evidence that the Indo-Europeans (from whose language group almost all current European languages derive) committed genocide in the course of their expansions starting around 4,000 BC.

Something genocidal appears to have struck ancient Britain, as there is genetic evidence of a 90% population turnover in the 3rd millennium BC. This could help explain how genetic analysis of "Cheddar Man," a 10,000 year old skeleton found in Somerset, England, could suggest that he had "quite dark skin and blue eyes" (The power of archaeology and genetics, NewScientist Magazine, 5/29/21). We've been wondering for a long time who built Stonehenge. Surprise!

In historical times, both the Athenian city-state and the Roman Empire, to take two examples, achieved much of their stature through genocide. The list of genocides after the Romans is long, covering all continents.

The quest for empire and hegemony- straight from the chimpanzee playbook- seems a prime factor in human genocide. Since the advent of large civilizations around 3,000 BC, it's been one alpha male ambition after another, producing brutal, genocidal empires that are then toppled by the next empire-building alpha, which is toppled by the next. It seems never to have occured to people that one might just live happily munching leaves, replacing glory and bloodlust with the simple pleasures of a satisfied existence, not unlike the lifestyle of another of our close ape relatives, gorillas (whose DNA differs from ours by 1.75%).

In fact the idea of just existing is repulsive to many people; we call it "vegetative," as if we know what it's like to be a plant. We think we are supposed to manage everything, maybe even dominate everything, as our choice of comic book "superheroes" shows.

I see the tendency in myself, at least in my childhood taste in fictional heroes, such as those from the TV series Star Trek. Was it the spectacle of Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise and cutting edge of the human race, landing on one planet after another, subduing its inhabitants, always winning? Or First Officer Spock (half-human, half-alien, a hybrid alpha) who matched Kirk's ability to dominate the environment but went beyond it by also dominating his inner self? Of course Kirk and Spock were depicted in each episode as gaining the moral high ground by adhering to Starfleet's "Prime Directive," that none of the ship's missions would interfere with indigenous cultures. That's why it's called science fiction.

Where does the chimp and human animus come from? What happened in the ancient forests of Africa, to us and to chimps? As William Blake phrased the question (though addressing a tiger):

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Scientists are not asking that question, but they are tangentially finding out interesting things about alpha males, in particular that there is a correlation between alpha males and a high level of the "flight or fight" drug serotonin, produced in a cluster of cells in the human brainstem called the raphe nuclei. When the raphe nuclei send a large dose of serotonin into the amygdala- a brain center that controls our emotional state- the amygdala directs us to become alphas and run the show. Submissive mice have been transformed into alpha's after injections of serotonin, and alphas have been demoted when their serotonin is decreased.

Interesting, but the question becomes, why did the ancient raphe nuclei feel the need to squirt so much serotonin into men's amygdalas? We get a shitload, which is probably why we can't stand a sky full of pigeons.

There's not much evidence to explain what humanity's raphe nuclei have been so agitated about, so once again we must guess. My guess is that we and our chimp cousins experienced non-belonging. The forest had rejected us in some fundamental way. We did not fit. Chimpanzees reacted to this ostracism by terrorizing each other into a structured existence calibrated for survival. Humans fought back by becoming ever smarter and more resourceful. Some of the response was practical, bringing development of improved hunting implements and use of fire. Some was psychological, as when ancient Egyptians built giant pyramids to inflate the standing of the ruling alphas and humble the working class (many pyramid workers were paid) and slaves. Some was suicidal, as when, in our time, we learned how to blow up and poison the planet, threatening the alphas along with everyone else. Perhaps we secretly hate the Earth and resent Creation for sending us here.

Genesis tells the story metaphorically. After Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, the Earth is revealed as inhospitable, requiring people to build artificial environments lest they starve or freeze. We're not the only creatures who have to do this: birds build nests; beavers build dams. But humans need to reconstruct the whole forest, the whole world.

There is growing understanding that our quest to reform the Earth under the guidance of the alpha male (and an enabling Eve) has gone awry. As the dream of a compatible Earth flounders, we turn to space- with its endless planets full of monsters to defeat, hellscapes to terraform and indigenous cultures to leave in pristine condition- hoping the effort out there will go better than it has here.

The question this essay asks is, what is the future of the alpha male who has guided us to this point? We are acquiring biological tools that will enable us to recreate ourselves. Through CRISPR technology we will be able to assemble our DNA into any combination of characteristics we want. If we envision a new way, one that seeks co-existence rather than dominion, we could, maybe, downgrade or phase out the alpha male (and alpha female, since we fluctuate now between chimp and bonobo) and create a more harmonious version of ourselves.

The fly in the ointment is that the people in charge of our re-creation will likely be alphas who are motivated to make vast fortunes and dominate the humans around them. The chimps and bonobos will be in charge, driven by their terror of not being in charge.

What can we do about this? Limit the supply of serotonin? It's unclear. Stay tuned for Part II of this post: How to ensure that the new humanity is not as homicidal and generally berzerk as the current one.

As I watched the current highly promoted movie, "Civil War", I had the recurring thought: "This is stupid." Yet I did not walk out, as I sometimes do. Why not?

The characters look and speak like contemporary Americans, but the politics is fiction. The US has ruptured into factions that are at war with each other, but there is no mention of MAGA or Blue and Red zones, no clear casus belli. Everyone is just fighting. We get a general picture of coalitions between states- unexplained and sometimes improbable, like California joined with Texas- who fight against other coalitions of states. The federal government is isolated and besieged, with the President barricaded in the White House, trying to organize supportive factions against the "Secessionists," who are not identified.

The protagonists are improbable too. They are war photographers obsessed with getting as close to the carnage and pain as possible, looking for that one great career-building "shot." They are improbable because they are cast as heroic, implying that what they are doing is good or helpful, an idea which, like the politics of the story, is unexplained. The group of four war photographers- led by a very stern Kirsten Dunst- travels through dangerous territories on their way to the White House, where they plan to interview the President, a feckless, desperate man who makes empty, slogan filled speeches.

There is one indicator of xenophobic ideology in the story, when a rural militant asks a captive where he is from. The man answers, "Hong Kong." The militant exclaims, "China!" and shoots him. To my many readers in Hong Kong, Singapore and China I ask: Are there people in the world who do not want us to mingle and find commonality? It would seem so.

Now I need to fill in a unique element of this movie-going experience: My desert companion Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster was tucked into my partially zipped jacket, watching the movie with me. Readers will recall the disaster that unfolded the last time I smuggled Robert into a movie theater (see below, "Harold Pinter through the eyes of a gila monster"), when Robert, an unusually opinionated reptile, went wild with tirades against movie criticism included in the film, exposing his presence to other theater-goers and necessitating our hasty retreat. Robert, who monitors my thoughts several times a day, gathered that I planned to see "Civil War" without him and pleaded for another chance. I relented after he promised to remain silent throughout the film, communicating with me- provided it was important- via telepathy only, no vocalizations like last time. [Note for new readers: I am one of about 5,000 human telepaths in the world. All gilas are telepathic, however they consider telepathy with creatures beyond their species an abhorrent perversion. As you'll see in posts below, Robert has been exiled from his clan for being such a pervert. I take some of the blame.]

Not surprisingly, Robert did not obey my stricture against constant intrusion of his thoughts during "Civil War." He was quiet for the first 20 minutes of the film- a litany of scenes showing people blown apart or tortured- but suddenly he could not contain himself:

Robert : Jeez, what is it with your species? No wonder you took over the world.

Me: Robert, please don't start with your superior species routine. Look at yourselves: Gila monsters don't love.

Robert: Yes they do, you just can't see it. All you see is a male gila sticking it in, then sprinting away to the next gig, while the female gazes into the distance thinking,"Hmm, it's a nice morning." But you forget, gilas are telepathic. That male is sprinting away, but an orgasmic telepathic flame shoots between him and his love, lasting for hours. Eat your heart out!

Me: Robert, I am trying to follow this movie, and you are making that difficult.

Robert: Why? Are you afraid you'll miss a critical plot element, maybe explaining why the cute girl needs to get two feet from the face of the man coughing blood and take multiple pictures of him from various angles? Don't expect that to be explained, Harry.

Me: Ok, well, not to totally disparage my species, but I'll admit that sometimes I get an involuntary kick out of the violence in movies like this, especially things blowing up, though I don't like the gore and pain that often goes with things blowing up.

Robert: There you go, Harry! Humans are drawn to explosions. Every time you see something blowing up in outer space you get excited. You love that our sun is itself an atomic bomb going off. So different from gilas!

Me: How so?

Robert: We're just chicken. Explosions do not thrill us at all. That's why we live in the desert; it's nice and quiet out here.

Me: Then why did you want to see this movie?

Robert: It's part of my study of your species.

Me: I see. What have you learned so far?

Robert: This movie reenforces my view that humans are drawn to matter breaking apart, to fission, to, as it were, destruction.

Me: Why would we be that way? What's the evolutionary advantage?

Robert: You get sustenance from the juices emerging between atoms as they're ripped apart, and you must take your juices where you can. Humanity was expelled from evolution's womb prematurely, and the world has been a confusing threat to you ever since. You fight the world because it fights you.

Me: Robert, should I start a religion where you sit on my shoulder and I speak your holy words?

Robert: Hey, it's your life.

Me: One last question: What do you think humans should do about their situation?

Robert: Like I would know?

I apologize to readers who were hoping for more enlightenment from this post. Actually I thought Robert's reply was enlightened enough. Maybe he and I should start a sect whose spiritual message is, "We don't know." That's certainly the message I got from this movie.

Harry the Human

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

By Bhutan!

Sunday, December 8, 2024

MIndfulness City...mindfulness world

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Robert embarks for Bhutan, with daily updates

Monday, November 25, 2024

With gods on our side

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

We waited for Godot

Monday, November 4, 2024

The god who masturbated the world into being

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster is going to Bhutan

Friday, October 11, 2024

Nematode

Saturday, August 3, 2024

Quick thought

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

There's a bard in my yard

Friday, May 10, 2024

The future of the alpha male

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Movie review: "Civil War"