LIVING

THIRTEEN AND A HALF BILLION

years ago the galaxy, let’s call her Granny G, is born.

That would make her about 54 years old in the HM 1300.

hm what?

Our history microscope, please keep up.

The earth and the sun arrive 4.5 billion years ago, or 18 years ago using the metaphor.

But let’s say the earth and the sun were born an equal amount of time before their orbital relationship so when the earth and sun got hitched they’re 18 years old.

like mother like daughter

No judgements please.

It was a simpler time billions of years ago, pre-internet.

That makes the Sun and Earth both about 36 years old now through the lens of the HM 1300.

And so far in our family we now have Grandma Galaxy, or Granny G, her daughter Mama earth, let’s say Mama Matter, and then the earth’s fiery lover the sun, Papa Power.

you’re not getting a show anytime soon with this type of material

I’m pretty sure the science checks out, if not the tortured metaphor.

And let’s just ignore the fact that Papa may or may not have a whole mess of side chicks, including one he can’t figure out if he’s acknowledging anymore.

pluto’s the thot

So then, when does life start?

that’s easy…god

If God’s a single celled organism, sure, protozoa arrives 2 billion years ago.

Let’s call him Pete and he can be first born with membrane bound nuclei, DNA chromosomes and the rest of the baggage of being the eldest.

so much responsibility

That means that Mamma Matter & Papa Power took their time sorting out their “atmosphere” before they felt ready to start a family, because although they got married at 18 they didn’t have Pete until they were 28.

But after they started they quickly followed with their second child, Freddy Fungi-

ewww…

Ahem, Freddy Fungi, two years later.

That puts our mushroom sibling at roughly 1.5 billion years old on the galactic family of life timeline.

Freddy is a little confused, like most middle children, both not able to produce food and so having to consume organic material but also having cell walls and vacuoles.

vacu-what now?

Like, think useful storage boxes to put away things you need later or want to move around which also help with structure.

he’d love the container store

Freddy is basically a little more useful, or at least more complex, than his older brother Pete.

But he kind of goes off in his own direction, again like most middle children, and hasn’t really changed much since.

Some say he’s still discovering himself.

sounds familiar

Quiet you.

So Mama and Papa are now 34 with six year old Proto-Pete and four year old Freddy Fungi when they have a set of twins you might recognize: Animal Adam & Plant Patty

really? plant patty?

Peppermint was under copyright.

So anyways, half a billion years ago, again two years under our microscope, Adam and Patty are born, showing you just how young life on earth actually is.

Adam has a cell membrane now, making complex functions easier to perform, but now has to consume organic compounds like his older funky bro-

I think feng shui freddy was a missed opportunity

-while Patty has a cell wall and vau-what nows from the container store, though she’s developed the awesome ability to create her own food with the help of her dad.

Remember, this is general plant and animal life. Using the HM 1300, humans actually don’t arrive until the very last week, and that’s only if you count our furthest ancestors, who came on the scene as Homo habilis.

In our cosmic family of life mankind has barely come home from the hospital, with a two year old set of twins in plants and animals waiting for us along with a six year older brother fungus and eight year old amoeba like-eldest.

this is simplifying?

Well, the idea is to survey the complexity of life over time and to recognize patterns that develop.

For example, it’s amazing that the evolution of fungus is three times older than plant and animal life and so likely assisted their emergence.

Perhaps they can also assist our survival.

Is it too much to imagine that a lifeform which branched from our evolutionary chain eons before we even became animals let alone humans has been able to develop its own version of consciousness?

Especially if that lifeform once ingested alters our own cognition on a profound level and plays a vital – if not foundational – role in most if not all ecosystems on our-

we get it you shroom

Anyways, Granny G has a big place and Papa Power seems to be treating Mama Matter well enough, despite his occasional flare ups and swinging orbitals.

They’re both 36 with a full house teeming with life and a new hairy little youngest to bring up to speed.

Little Hairy Homo might think he’s a terror but even his most dastardly nuclear farts linger only ten minutes, half hour max in this timeline.

His tantrums are just a bad day in the cosmic scheme of things.

He hasn’t even developed the restraint to not shit himself on a regular basis.

And so a somewhat drained Mama still tries to love him the best she can while tolerating his colic, throwing on a VHS when she needs a break, a trick she learned from her own mom.

It just so happens that all of modern behavioral humanity, from the stone-age to the present, can fit into that 110 minute film from her childhood, a somewhat exploitative slapstick comedy about the virtues of recycling: “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”

really?

The science checks out.

this is why people turn to religion…and puppets

You’re saying there’s a difference?

shots fired

But perhaps we’ve dialed the HM 1300 too high.

Let’s scale it down by a power of 2500 and see what patterns we can tease out of one hundred thousand years to one.

from the general to the specific?

Pretty sure this thing only works one way…didn’t read the instructions.