I was doing laundry today and letting the random flotsam & jetsam that drifts through my mind do its thing, when something occurred to me as I was folding the clothes:
the idea of human beings being "unique" because we are tool users, and the question of biology versus being.
Well, there are plenty of other living creatures that use tools: birds build nests for shelter, certain apes use twigs to remove insects from holes, there's a species of octopus that carries discarded coconut shell halves around to use as a portable hide-a-hole.
Somehow, in my mind, I thought about gender, identity, its construction, reconstruction, and assignment.
And I thought and thought...
Human beings are not born with shells - so we "discovered" caves, then learned to build homes. We're not born with fur, so we learned how to make clothes. We don't have wings, but we build planes. We cannot breathe underwater, we created submersibles, SCUBA, and submarines. We can't see at night, we can't sting our enemies, at least, not as part of our biological gifts, but we can don night vision goggles, shoot arrows, bombs, and bullets.
There's a section in TH White's "Once and Future King" (and yeah, I know, some people hate it, but I don't) about when God speaks to all the embryos/creatures created and asks them what they want. They ask for hands like spades and special teeth, and bills and gills and all such manner of things. But the human embryo asks to remain an embryo since that is its original design and in doing so, answers a riddle that the creatures didn't realize had been posed.
And it hit me, these questions and answers about who and how and why we are, in the ways we can change, the ways we don't, the things we argue about as right and wrong.
Our bodies...are NOT our destiny. Sure, there are things that are limited by biology, and so, we use a knife to cut meat, a shovel to dig, a rocket to reach the moon, a surgeon to fix a tear, change a face, or even a persona.
We are not merely tool users, we are tool innovators, constant Manifestors and Evolvers of Potential, individually and collectively.
It seems the more esoteric philosophers are patently and materially (as in real-world) correct: we dream, and we become, through years of trial and error, via shifts in perspective and in our every day actions.
All of it, these palpable touchable things, from medicine to machines - are the literal material manifestation of dreams. And none of these things - from the "minor" every day of clothes and shelter, to the "major miracles" of our current modernity - absolutely none of them emerge with us from the womb.
We are squeezed out bloody, helpless, and naked. We are given a body that follows a basic template. Some of what happens after that is dependent on our surrounding environment, but the rest? It is absolutely, positively, 100% up to us.
To be human is to be a modifier - and to build upon the accomplishments that precede. What do you want to be? Someone invented SCUBA and the submarine, Orville and Wilbur Wright gave us wings. A team of human beings brought us to the moon, gave us ears and eyes that penetrate deep into the night skies, discovered how to sculpt flesh.
We once wore skins, now we have designers. We lived in caves, now we have architects. We listened to the radio, now we exchange - sometimes "real time" - information via the internet.
We change our environment, from paint to temperature, to suit our needs, moods, and moments. We use machines to accomplish things that are biologically impossible - for humans. We consider none of this "unnatural" and in fact, consider those unable to do so deprived.
And so I concluded: you don't like your hair? You cut it, tint it, shape it, hide it. You can correct and color your eyes. You want to fly? Take a plane. Swim in reefs? Get the appropriate tools. And if you're a boy who wants to be a girl, or a girl who wants to be a boy...you fix that, too, in whatever way works for you.
Now I've got to walk the dog. Wonder what I'll think about next!
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