Pages

20120325

The Cuteness and The Horror

Puppies gotta eat. Indeed, everything living has to eat, one way or another. It's one of the cruel truths of our reality: For all animals, to survive, to live, you must kill. Plants are much more hippy about it, living off the sun, water, and dirt.

And it is this reality - kill or die - which is the main agent of evolution. For, quite simply, those traits that add either to your success in killing or in processing the carcass increase your chances of living. And to live is to have the chance to reproduce, and reproduction IS the meaning of life. One way or another. That's the answer to the fabled question, by the way, and I answer it oh-so-offhandedly because it's rather obvious: The meaning of Life is to reproduce. And that's the subject of an infinite amount of stories.

So, in my roundabout way, I come to the subject of obesity. It does not exist in the wild, for no creature, except one, is successful enough to ward off the seasonal ebbs and flow of the food chain. Every animal out there, save one (and the ones he/she chooses to favor), is in a brutal competition for scarce resources and there simply is no means to get fat.

But then there's humans!
She's cute, if she lost like 200 or so pounds. Only human society of the modern era could create such a woman. Even 60-70 years ago, it would have been unheard of (or the result of an actual genetic condition) for someone to be this obese, except possibly for the very rich. But now it's almost commonplace. Even the animals we have domesticated can suffer from this miracle (in that it never occurs in nature) of obesity:
All due to our technology, which in that span of 60-70 years has become magical, and will only become more so. The wonders/horrors that await us are mindboggling. Prepare yourself for ever more extremes, for it is the inevitable result of overcoming nature's "kill or die" decree.

No comments: