The Price of Fruit

 I'm going to start today by quoting the Bible, but don't be alarmed! This is not a religious post.

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"

10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I'm fat."

This is Genesis, chapter 3, verses 6 to 10, New King James Version.

 

OK, OK, you'll probably have noticed I've edited verse 10. I'll come to that in a bit. 

One of the other themes in Genesis is how God puts Man above all the other life on earth, giving it to Adam to name it, and telling him he can eat what he wants of it (bar that one famous exception of course!).

When you ask a search engine 'what makes humans different to animals', you'll find a whole host of opinions and sites, but mostly, it seems to boil down consciousness and self-awareness. You never hear animals say 'Jeez, would you look at the time, where has the day gone?' (sure, you could train a parrot to say it but that's different). Similarly, I'm not aware of animals having a mid-life crisis because they got to whatever middle age is for them, and thought they hadn't done much in life and now they were approaching death. 

Like most people, I spend an inordinate amount of time trawling social media. Trawling is a type of fishing as you know, and when it comes to social media we seem to catch a lot of rotten fish in the form of posts, news, and opinions, but also in the form of things which affect that consciousness and self-awareness and chip away at us.

As an animal lover, I quite like those videos from the likes of The Dodo, about rescued animals given a new leaf of life. Often, you'll see cases of the bird with no feathers, the dog with only three, or even just two legs. You'll also see them full of life again, happy to play, and be fussed, and get about however they can. I'll watch these clips and feel sorry for the less-limbed dog, the featherless bird, 'it's a shame for them, poor things'. Meanwhile, the three-legged dog doesn't (as far as we know) run around with the four-legged dogs thinking 'it's not fair, I only have three legs'. Nor do we see the likes of a pug looking at the greyhound and crying about being stocky and tubby, despite being bred that way. They play, they run and roll with joy, living in the moment.

That's not to say that appearances never come into play in the animal world. Take the male paradise bird with extravagant plumage displaying to attract a female. Should an unfortunate male have lost its long and bright feathers and have nothing to show, then he likely won't get a mate. BUT he won't stop trying, nor will he be conscious of the fact he is missing what he is. Not in the way a human would when we compare ourselves to others.

The thing that makes us different to animals comes with a hefty price to pay. The awareness of our own mortality, comparing ourselves to others or an idea in our mind of how we should look, or where we should be in life. It can constantly eat away at us, filling our time with sorrow and worry, and efforts to be slimmer, or more toned, or more successful (however we've defined it).

Whilst the animal world just gets on with living - the body being merely a vessel for the force of life and survival, that can still succeed despite being damage or missing some parts. What makes us humans different is how we can focus so much on the vessel and miss life entirely. But, for those of who prone to this, it's not our fault. There are whole industries built around appearance and ideals. For us gays, algorithms pushing muscular ripped bodies from people who can spend all day in a gym. 

I have many a time left the house in the early morning to head off to work, to do unfulfilling work that serves the capitalist machinery whilst eroding my own soul. Saying bye to the dog, curled up in bed, not having to get up and go toil away, and being so envious of her simple life of sleeping, eating, playing, repeat. Sure, a shorter life, but she didn't even care for that fact because she wasn't 'gifted' with the higher consciousness we have. She lived as much as she could right to the very end. 

Of course, in the Bible, Adam and Eve being the first humans didn't have others to compare themselves to, but they were still suddenly aware of their nakedness and ashamed. These days, we don't just wear clothes to not be naked, but also to hide the bits of us we don't like. Baggy t-shirts to hide a paunch, long sleeves to hide pale or scarred skin.

'Why are you hiding?'
- 'Because I'm fat and my progress has gone in reverse and I'm pale and my skin sags'
'Why are you sad?'
- 'Because I've not achieved anything with my life and I'm panicking about my looming mortality, and I can't cope so I'm just sleeping a lot and I'm still really tired'

And that's the price of the fucking fruit!