Friday, August 8, 2008

The secret to our evolution

Every now and again, I write something on this blog that doesn't get posted. Something happens just before I'm going to post it, someone pisses me off or whatever and that gets priority and the post-in-progress gets lost. So I have a bunch of started, but not finished, posts in the Drafts bit of blogger. Yesterday's post was one that began as one rant about art, I got bored with it and posted about Batman instead - hence the image having absolutely nothing to do with Batman.

But then I found this post sitting in the Drafts bit and I thought it was worthy of posting so here it is, an old long-lost post. Can you tell the image was done a while back?


Ever wonder how we evolved beyond our instincts? Developed our minds and our emotions? Created language, art, pizza and all the other wonderful things we take for granted?

Here's the answer:

Masturbation.

Yep, a good ol' hand shandy.

You see, we're just animals. And animals are normally governed by instinct. It's all based on gene survival but it amounts to feeding and having sex. Feeding keeps us alive so we can then go and have sex. That's for reproduction but, in an interesting bit of programming, it's the act itself that seems to have been coded in, like one will always lead to the other.

So those two instincts drive animals. Eat. Sex. Of course, in the wild, eating isn't always that easy. You might have to spend days foraging or hunting. And having sex, well that's a battle to be alpha male. It all takes a hell of a lot of time. Too much time to do anything else. But we were given opposable thumbs and that, in turn, gave us the means to crack one off.

And crack one off we did.

Suddenly, that sex instinct was satisfied for a short time. What would we do with all that newfound spare time? Well, it seems the answer is - we began thinking. We used that time to work out better ways of dealing with the first instinct and built tools to hunt and then began farming. And so now both instincts are satisfied. And man finds he has quite a bit of time to sit around, write poetry and paint beautiful pieces of art. Oh, and look for better ways of destroying and ripping off their fellow man.

All because they just reached into their loincloths and gave a good tug.

But, like everything in life, it requires moderation. You see, the bonobo monkeys are all about feeding that sex instinct. But they just don't know when to stop. They're consumed by it.

With porn being so readily available on the internet, I wonder if it will herald a new phase of human evolution or if we'll turn into bonobos.

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