Common Ancestors

There’s a somewhat sad article at bbc.com about whether crabs feel pain. Actually its more than sad: Its sickening and indicates how arrogant humans can be, particularly those on their mission to mediate what we consider truth via scientific means, instead of listening to wisdom.

Yesterday I attended a music recital and there was a family with two parents and three kids sitting near to me and they were like demons. The kids were totally ignoring the recital and continued to talk and romp around as though they were in a playpen, not a music recital. The parents were absolute dimwits. But there was an arrogant side about them. They acted as if, because they had kids, they could just disrespect all the other people in attendance at the recital who wanted to listen to the music. They acted as if, being parents, it was somehow their right. People like that are truly sickening and disgusting, and it makes me step back and think how sad it is that, even though human technology is advancing so far, and humans’ ability to strip resources from Earth on demand to make whatever they want, humans are actually getting more stupid, more ignorant, and more arrogant. They are less respectful, less decent human beings.

And so, with this article I’m reading today, its really sad that there is some kind of need to “establish” whether some animals feel pain or not, and doing stupid things like administering electric shocks to them and watching whether or not they avoid things. Humans are grotesque and cruel.

But actually the point of my wanting to write this article was something else. Because, looking at the photo of the hermit crab above, I cannot see how any person can not help having a feeling of endearment for these precious little creatures. When you look at him or her, even though he or she has a very different body type than any mammalian species, we still feel something. You can see the little eyes looking at you and it just makes you feel a connection, that this little creature is blessed and deserves to live its life in freedom and happiness.

And that made me wonder. Why is it, exactly, that when we see another animal, when we look upon them, no matter how different they are, we still always have that feeling of endearment?

Of course human beings and pretty much all animals on Earth go back to a common ancestor. And I believe that the common ancestor to humans and crustaceans would probably have been some worm-like creature with bilateral symmetry which probably arose around the time of the Cambrian Explosion. It was during this short time of about 20 million years that nearly all the major groups of life forms on Earth emerged, including the bilaterals. The Wikipedia page for bilaterals has a really cool phylogenic tree where you can see the branching of just this one particular group which emerged during the Cambrian Explosion.

In it you can see the branch of the chordates coming off the deuterosome tree and the craniates coming from the chordates. We are more used to the clade of vertebrata as being the most basic branching off from the chordates that led to us and its interesting to note here that before vertebrata scientists now have the craniates from which the grouping of jawed vertebrates, the Gnathostomes, come.

Going back up the tree to the bilateral branch, it is noteworthy that that is where the characteristic of triploblastic embryos occurs, meaning the embroyos have an endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. Basically you can see how the body types of animals on Earth were built over millions of years with basic traits being developed and shared by many organisms which later went on to develop in very different ways.

This profound legacy spanning a length of time which is difficult if not impossible for human minds to fully conceive, is what we inherited. It is our bodies and all the life around us. And now, in the blink of an eye, it is being threatened by the catastrophic ignorance of the human species, even at a time when it is purported to be attaining advanced knowledge and capabilities.

It makes me step back and really look at the bigger picture of Earth and what it all means. What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to really love Earth and to give expression of that love in one’s innermost being? Does it ever come from arrogance, disrespect, and inattentiveness?

On another side note, I found out yesterday that this current year was dedicated by Pope Francis as the year of awareness of the life of consecration, meaning the year in which we should appreciate the path of those human beings whose calling to serve Divinity is higher than all else. I have long identified with this calling and believe that all exceptional people, the bright lights which shine in this world, follow it in their unique ways. Living a life of consecration, listening to that voice deep inside, is not about being Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, or Hindu.

I did not know about this year and it touched me. Because even though I never took an overt vow, I feel that we are all called in ways to consecrate our lives, and to pull ourselves up from baseness into a life of deeper meaning and devotion to what we love. In short, Pope Francis’ dedication resonates with me as I, a human in this mass of 7 billion other humans, look at the world around me and see many unsettling things.

How can anyone not listen to their conscience? How can anyone live not in connection with the deepest truth in their soul? How can anyone walk among the beings of this precious world and not be called to something deeper, an inspiration, dedication, and deep commitment to end suffering and do good?

Sadly, some people seem to have lost their concept of nobility. They are mired in the milieu of all the spurious manifestations of forms, caught in traps of gratification and self-indulgence, and are losing their humanity and their ability to evolve. Human society is evolving in the wrong way. At a time when it has the knowledge and means to progress forward, it is regressing.

What will be the consequences of this mass folly for the future Earth? Already we see a grim darkness spreading across the world, and many foreboding signs of impending catastrophes for life on our planet.

Is this what we are going to choose? Is this all that our lives will mean, when the beings who have inherited the world from us in the far distant future look back and wonder?