
When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgement of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself … that work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life. – Stanley Kunitz
A few billion years ago, microscopic “life forms” caused Earth to change from an uninhabitable nasty suffocating place to one more like we now know. As the movie Jurassic Park scientist character said, “Life, uh, finds a way….” So, here are these tiny forms of life Finding Their Way, and what they did was pave the way for all living things by transforming our Earth.
Sometimes I wonder, if I were transported back even a few thousand years, how would my breathing be? What would the earth smell like? How would my feet feel upon the ground, my eyes see color and texture? If a scientist took the inner workings, the soft tissue, of someone from that time and compared it to my soft tissue, what would the differences be? How have we evolved because of the changes in our atmosphere, and what we eat, how we move about or don’t move about, and how we live our everyday lives in response to happiness and having things and not having things, to the stresses and joys and overwhelming possibilities of just where are we headed and how life is lived now and our responses to each other as humans with varied thoughts and beliefs and the very nature of how we know everything that is going on everywhere twenty-four hours a day/night—how would we differ from the earliest “intelligent life?” To begin and end and begin and end and begin and end, round and round and round we go.
But I seemingly digress. Let’s see. Meteorites bombarded—carbon arrived. Bacteria partied and hooked up. Things began to change.
These tiny micro-organisms reproduced and belched and poo’d and thusly started the reactions to create the oxygen to change the atmosphere of our Earth to one where A Life Form would at worst be vaporized and also at worst (there is no at best here) asphyxiate in agony to one where we can walk along a garden and pick a fresh tomato and eat it, while a rabbit sniffs the carrots, and a butterfly sips from a flower, and a tree shades a dog, and a cat eats a mouse, and a child is born and it is protected—or it is not.
If you imagine our sun as weaker and that light from it was weaker, if you imagine the hydrogen sulfide and stinky fumes and the amount of carbon dioxide, this fiery place—sounds more like the Biblical apocalypse, doesn’t it?—as if the idea of the End of the World is not really the End of the Earth but the beginning of it. So, here’s this Earth with a stifling atmosphere and a red-orange color, and oceans that were a weird slug green color. Comets and meteors pounding the crap out of Earth, vaporizing waters, creating noxious rain, and it is in this environment that Life, uh, finds a way.
An example is in Mexico, in the tropical rainforest, in the Cueva de Villa Luz. In the cave is a nasty smelling place of hydrogen sulfide—much like scientists believe the earth was a few billion years ago. Scientists study this cave, since they think it represents early Earth, for clues to how Life began. Inside the cave are single-cell bacteria that dribble slimy ick that scientists call snottites. The snottites are alive and they are in that hostile environment, thriving.
Bacteria. The most ancient form of life on our Earth. They adapt to what they need to adapt to. In the single-cell bacteria there is a molecule of DNA—and we all know that DNA is the Code of Life—allowing them to multiply. And in this cave, which represents Earth billions of years ago, there are towns and cities and continents of bacteria, which depend on their environment instead of being consumed by it.
Conditions on early Earth may have been far worse, but these bacteria suggest that primitive life could have thrived in extremely hostile environments . . . for more than a century, scientists have known that life is the result of chemistry, the combination of just the right ingredients in just the right amounts. – Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
Dang, y’all!
And those main ingredients that make up (about 96% of) the building blocks of life, folks, for every living organism, are: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen—elements that are common in the universe, with our buddy, good ol’ flexible Carbon as the main element.
We are all connected, a chemistry experiment that despite of—or BECAUSE of—incredible odds was created by whatever you want to believe—I believe in science and discovery whether it proves these theories or discoveries correct or incorrect or somewhere in between, but whom or what you believe in is no less important to you and I respect that, as we should respect each other.
So, if these tiny little bitty single cell organisms can survive and thrive and create the conditions for everything as we now know it—if life despite its great odds and fiery circumstance and bombardments somehow found a way, then why, why, whhyyy, for gawd’s sake and all that is holy can’t I finish this goddamn book?
Why can’t you finish, or start, your book, piece of art, music, afghan you’ve been knitting for five years, room remodel, poetry chapbook, classic car refurbishment, comic book character, classes, movie, climbing that mountain, going on that trip, dating (uh, lawd, maybe I should leave this one out-ha!), exercising, drinking kale (haha—those who follow me on FB know what I’m talking about), calling that someone you’ve lost touch with, taking that chance to . . . ?
About Kathryn Magendie
Kathryn Magendie is an Amazon Kindle Bestselling Author of five novels and a novella, as well as short stories, essays, and poetry —Tender Graces was an Amazon Kindle Number 1 bestseller. She’s a freelance editor of many wonderful authors' books and stories, a sometimes personal trainer, amateur/hobby photographer, and former Publishing Editor of The Rose & Thorn Journal (an online literary journal published with Publishing Editor Poet/Songwriter Angie Ledbetter). Magendie’s stories, essays, poetry, and photography have been published in print and online publications.From her porch over-looking the Great Smoky Mountains she contemplates the glow of Old Moon—Cove Crow and his family speak to her and she listens.
Because we’ve gone from group to individual. Life survives – but individuals don’t, and only individuals write novels.
Sorry, but the herd won’t help you. You have to decide that this is worth the one life you get – and do the work.
The Universe doesn’t care – you do.
Good luck finishing. You can do this. You come from tough stock.
PS If I can do it, anyone can. Very tough and stubborn stock.
The sixth time’s a charm, right? Laugh
Snottites. I would hardly have believed even a few minutes ago I would be reading a writing blog that mentioned snottites because my WIP mentions snottites, extemophiles, micbrobes and other-worldly things. Fun stuff.
wow! Now that’s awesome 😀
Any minute now I will abandon my long-suffering WIP (which is so, so used to being abandoned at the first appearance of any fascinating shiny object) and develop a poem or flash fiction inspired by the snottite.
Laughing!
Oh Kat – I had a blast, as I always do, reading your piece (or just about anything you’ve ever written). But I must admit, I’m super grateful that you found and included the Kunitz quote.
The truth of it pops me in the kisser, leaves a sting but a wakefulness, an exhilaration. I suppose it’s because I’ve sort of recognized I’m over the hump – both as a writer and as a human. I’m on the downside, and that’s not all bad. I can see that none of it matters except finishing what I’ve started. This story has never stopped yammering at me. I mean, there have been periods when I could clap my hand over its gob to muffle it, but I can’t shut it up. Not completely. And one of the things I’ve finally deciphered from its incessant claptrap is… gratitude. My own. I mean, that I should be. Grateful. For it – the call to write it, yammering and all.
Maybe bacterial infection has finally worked in my favor. Not sure, but I’m infected, and I can see that the only healing I’ll ever find will be in answering the call, and staying on this gods-forsaken storytelling treadmill. May it spin till I’m yarnless.
Thanks for the nudge.
I love that quote too – and lawd the moments that I have wanted recognition and awards and money!
Bacterial infection 😊😊😊 unless you meant literally then 😧😩😔
Nature always seems to have another surprise waiting.
Yesterday I learned that aphids — ordinary aphids, out in your garden — reproduce asexually by giving birth (!) to live clone-daughters most of the year, some of which may be already pregnant (!) with a next generation of clone-grand-daughters. Then, in fall, when the winter is coming, the aphids give birth to both sons and daughters, who reproduce sexually to produce eggs that ride out the winter. Then spring comes, the eggs hatch, and it’s back to live birth of clone-daughters again.
You can’t make this stuff up. An entire species that only has males around when times get tough, and thrives and reproduces just fine without them.
Imagine a human culture based on that, where women give birth to clones (after overcoming the barrier imposed by genomic imprinting) but occasionally birth males to do a little gene-spreading, or to fulfill some other need. Imagine what might have motivated them to become that way. Imagine the norms and taboos that would evolve. Imagine why a character might break those taboos or violate those norms, the stories that would result, and what those stories would say about us.
Then imagine what it would be liked to resist the urge to write those stories, and finish your WIP instead. Unlikely as that seems, it does happen — you can’t make this stuff up. ;)
WOW! I never knew that! *eyes wide and amazed* – though, as humans we have sex for other reasons than creating life so we’d need the opposite sexes for that. Otherwise, I’d have had to give it up quite a few years ago, being out of my clone-bearing years *laugh*
Though – that story sounds kind of interesting – laugh.
I don’t think my computer currently has a virus, but I certainly have a BACTERIAL infection when it comes to this WIP, this novel, this group of words that invades my sleep, makes me jot notes on the backs of magazines, grocery receipts etc etc. There is no cure, for me. But hey, I’m still breathing. Great post.
It is just as if we have a sickness isn’t it? Laugh! Invading germific bacteria infiltrating our brains and into our marrow – WHEEEEEE! :D
The (probably boring and too literal) scientific answer is that our present selves are terrible at predicting how our future selves will feel upon crossing the finish line. So we give into our other genetic programming, which is in the DNA of every species on this plant: avoid danger (critics and self-doubt), conserve energy (avoid unnecessary tasks that don’t enhance survival), and reproduce.
That’s not to say we can’t access and use our higher brains to push ourselves forward, but the exact wrong way to do it is to be anything other than compassionate for our vulnerabilities and fear. (Because if we tell ourselves we are weak or wrongheaded in some way, we raise the fear quotient and make it even more likely we will retreat into that limbic system programming.)
Anyway, you can do eet, Kat. And I hope you do. The world needs more Magendie novel-writing.
A word I would never ever associate with you Wonderful Jan is BORING!
*wiping sweat from forehead that you didn’t say I was plain Pure D Lazy* laughing!
Boredom has a lot to do with it. I’m bored. So maybe it’s time to shake things up! Right? Right? RIIIGHT?