Sunday 14 September 2003

Pic of the day: Some of the flowers in September.

Late bloom

There is a house in the neighborhood, its garden is full of blooming flowers. Most other gardens were like this in the spring; now only a few scattered flowers show up along the road I walk. But this "House of September" as I think of it, now it blooms, covered in color and life.

Some people are like that too. I think they are called "late bloomers", at least by those who don't use the word "bloomers" in a different meaning. There are people who don't adjust quickly to this world. They may start from a difficult position, either because of their health or their wealth or the way they have been treated as children. But they don't give up. They add brick to brick, learning more about their work and about how to interact with people. They win respect, they gain confidence. Step by step they get closer to their goals. And they reach them, while there is still time.

***

I am not sure it would be right to think of me in such terms. In a way, it is true. My childhood was partially a nightmare (the part that was away from home, mostly) because I was small and weak and sickly and lacked all social skills except irony. I carried a shadow government of hate inside me for many years after I grew up, even though I denied it control of my body nearly all the time. On another front, I had an intense fear of intimate relationships until my mid 30es or so. (The background for this I will not cover today.)

I have worked through my complexes, balanced my economy, learned to understand and empathize with people. But I have not used this progress to bloom as our civilization expects it: By accumulating wealth, building useful social networks, and above all (be-)getting children. On the contrary. As time has passed by, more and more of the desires I had have faded. Not because I have denied them, really. If anything, those I have denied are still there ... No, they have faded because I lost interest in them. I passed them by, like driving along a highway that passes outside a town, never really passing through.

The material wealth I have gathered is mostly in the form of books and computers, none of which have much resale value. In short, I guess I have done most of my growing within the mind rather than outward toward the world. This makes sense, given my impression of the world as rather unfriendly. And let me add that the world did a pretty good job at convincing me too, during my formative years.

***

I reached puberty a couple year after the boys in my class. I continued to grow taller until 18 or so. My tallest brother may have still been growing at 19, or so it seems from the measurements taken back then. Nobody in our family married early, although all of my brothers married while there was still time. Most of my ancestors (especially on my mother's side) lived to a ripe old age, typically around 90 (give or take a few years) and most of them retained their mind until rather late in that lifespan. True, my mother died in her late 70es, but that was after 25 years of malign melanoma, a cancer that usually kills within a few years. I've never heard of anyone ever holding out that long.

I am reminded about a study of selective breeding where banana flies were kept from breeding until late in their fertile interval. After generations of this, their offspring not only lived longer, but stayed young longer too. This makes perfect sense: The ones who didn't, left little or no offspring. Of course it would take much longer time to breed humans for a long life, but it would most certainly work. It's not like the laws of physics are holding us back here.

But as for me, I don't see myself as part of any such experiment. My intellect may still be blooming, but romance sure isn't, and I don't think there is any need for it. With all my brothers having children, our genes should be well taken care of. If anything, they have better genes than I have. And that's all there is to it, right? When we come down to earth, I mean. We marvel at the beauty of flowers; but they are just very elaborate reproductive organs. Now I may go for the world record in cynicism and say, no wonder flowers are favorite gifts among lovers ... but actually, I believe it's just the other way around.

***

Yes, long ago this was all flowers were: Useful appendages to attract insects, signaling with their unusual size, shape, colors and fragrance so that insects could find them more easily and carry the pollen from flower to flower. But all that changed when humans came. Bees love flowers by instinct, driven by their need for food. Humans enjoy flowers not for food but for their beauty. And so humans started to cultivate flowers, selecting the most beautiful they could find and keeping them in gardens. Over time, the flowers changed, becoming more and more rich and attractive. By now, some flowers cannot even reproduce the natural way, having been altered too far by human culture.

Are we not capable of doing the same to ourselves? What we call "romance" may at its core simply be mating rituals. But the human spirit cannot leave well enough alone, it must drive the things it touch to new and higher levels of beauty, until the original function becomes of little or no consequence. Is that not so? We have done it with food, which we cannot even live without, and we have done it with clothes. Whatever the original use of music or dance were, they are lost in the trackless depths of time. Even as a species, we are late bloomers, discovering later what we can do with the gifts we were given generations ago.

Genetic analysis indicate that the common ancestor of all living humans was born at least 100,000 years ago, perhaps 150,000. Yet for most of that time, our ancestors seem to have lived like the earlier hominids, creating simple but practical stone tools and leaving no signs of other interests. Then, around 40,000 years ago, humanity changes its mind. Suddenly people make carvings and paintings, musical instruments, elaborate and graceful tools, and religious rituals as show by their burials. And again, 10,000 years ago, they start to cultivate local grasses and tubers for food (or perhaps mostly for beer) and domesticate animals for meat. Around 6,000 years ago, our civilizations start, with the invention of writing and bookkeeping. There is no sign of biological change in the human race through all these 100,000+ years.

Given this, I think we should not be quick to give up on those who have not "made it" over the course of a couple decades. But that's just me. You be your own judge.