The Human Imposter
One day I discovered that where our tails had once been, scales now began to appear and develop. The rest of my flesh was still intact, but for how long? While most prefer to think in terms of evolution, I was forced to consider an alternative to orthodox doctrines – de-evolution. Could I be going backwards? How far had I evolved if this were, in fact, the case? Did I evolve into a worthwhile specimen?
Instead of ascending to higher planes, I was returning to that pool where everything – at least, in this world –
The Cosmic Soup.
And if that were the case, would that be the end, or would that merely begin the entire cycle again? And what would the journey backwards consist of? Would we use the same route going back?
But first, back to getting here …
If that were so, that would mean that at some stage, we were anything but human, our origins, unknown. Was there a hidden door, hitherto unknown, to becoming human – just when we thought we had figured out the puzzle, a piece would then dislodge the entire frame of thought? We could have been dogs, tigers, elephants or mastodons. But what would those who had become mastodons, for example, having faced extinction – what would become of them? Were they dead-enders?
If that were so, then how did that influence those others who became what we are?
The ones who completed the entire cycle? Would a person who had once been a tiger, for example, now be a danger to others? Who were the rats that populate our cities and countryside? Does any of this even make any sense?
If there were a door, or some other type of latch, whose existence we had not been previously privy to, this would then require yet another adjustment of scientific, moral and religious thought on a radical scale.
It seems that if this were so, we would have to rewrite biology (and other) textbooks, to explain the enormous shift in thought, to explain how this freshly picked bulb proved the entire body of knowledge and thought completely wrong. Everything would have to be reconstructed.
If that were so, then we could place each version side-by-side, and study the errors in thought we had made and how those errors yielded false conclusions. And we would always have to leave space for that knowledge we still did not possess, and may never possess – Ignorance, the knowledge of The Unknown.
Now that kind of job would interest me – reviewing the lineage of flawed ideas, knowledge, perceptions, and perspectives, and their application in the world we live in. But I fear this will not be possible, as I observe the transformation my body has embarked on, the rapid reversal from flesh into scales, has now reached my fingertips.