5. Monkey
What do you believe sums up the 20th century? Why not email me and tell me what you think at matt@interconnected.org	Whilst lying on this millennial couch of social introspection and self-examination our thoughts must inevitably turn to the fundamental nature of our own humanity.      In what sense do we call ourselves human? Darwin showed us that that the wind of nature blows the branches of the tree of life as they grow towards the lifegiving sun of evolutionary fitness. How, even, can we discriminate between the complexity of animalhood and the eternal dance of quarks huddled and hunched into hadrons? Carl Sagan reminded us that we are all made of stardust. The monkey then: this hardly-human hominid both distances us from the animal kingdom and binds us with our brethran. Staring into those alien eyes we serve to reinforce our fin de siecle solipsism: we confirm our worst fears - that we can never understand those closest to us; that appearances are always deceptive and this, our closest of cousins, is nothing like ourselves; we are destined to travel the journey of life with no-one to share our innermost thoughts. Alone, into infinity. But the ultimate irony of individualism and the 1990s society soon becomes evident. We have built up walls around ourselves; as Thatcher's children we live life on our own terms, make decisions considering only number one.      And as we gaze into the soft brown eyes of our simian sisters we realise that despite our pretence we aren't that alone and different after all. Millennial self-analysis is really about getting to know our own minds in order to reinterpret our relationship with others. In surprise we see ourselves reflected back in the monkey: we live, we breathe. We come into this world unknown and unknowing. We struggle for survival. We squat naked and exposed, high up in the forest, and masturbate furiously among the twigs and leaves, from here until eternity.     Front page      |      Exit