Dear Dr. Frankenstein,

i very much appreciate your weekly column. with all your ideas of how the human form can adapt to a toxic situation on earth and chemical ones on other planets, you provide hope for the future of the species. it may not be a pretty picture, however when a dinosaur morphed into a bird, did it care or even notice? all it wanted to do was survive. 

alas, or unfortunately, the people writing you wannabe scientists. they ask about flips and buttons, managing joints and trajectories. in other words, nerds. i too am in that category, having invented and patented a machine to feed unruly children. that has been perfected to my satisfaction and the company's. i would like to ask a more personal question. 

you see, i'm old enough to die respectably, many of my acquaintances and friends have already departed to zone 2. and having made my contribution to the human family, i can consider my life a success, in the ordinary way. on the other hand, i've been working to put together the creature of my life into an even more shining order, if only for myself and the press. i'd like to leave an image of what the ideal life (human being) can be. 

my first attempt, thanks to thomas edison, turned out to be a light-bulb. built of bright, clear glass with adequate illumination, it could be used as a lighthouse, perhaps in outer space. our depleted atmosphere so thin and shallow, it could shine like a star. but, even though i've picked the brightest shining moments of my own history to construct it, the shell very fragile. i don't think it would even survive one take-off. 

setting it aside, i worked with the leftover, rather nasty stuff. i thought, why not, dr. frankenstein did? i had hoped to convert lead into gold. it, instead, looked like a cross between an alligator and a sponge. if i were setting up an alternate universe, i might be able to use it somewhere. as an object meant to inspire mankind under present evolution, it might undo the great work you've done to provide hope. 

well, what do i do with a light bulb and an alligator sponge? could i put the monster the bulb, letting the light transform the ugly creature into a magnificent, tough brilliance? i tried it. again, failure. i could only send the deformed to other planets, a image of horror. okay, the light bulb into the monster. that held promise. maybe the scaly skin and porous sponge could protect my divine light and the light transcend all other examples. 

this got me in trouble with the local authorities. the lucid, stunningly lit house with teeth scared the cats in the street and the neighbors. i had to shut down the operation until i could get the permits to resume, and this city is tough. now i'm sitting on the couch, aging and with conjecture trying to at least come up with a metaphysical concept. after all, everything begins with an idea. 

only i haven't got one, the reason i'm writing you. how does one create a image of their own life they can happily die with? a tremendous puzzle, don't you think, and worthy of your attention? hopefully you will get to this message before i'm gone. i'm trying like hell to hold on until i can be elevated with a smile on my face. 

Solar Eclipse http://www.pbase.com/wwp

Origin Of The Species, a sequel

this evening, after filling a garbage can with 'stuff' i still feel i have too much: notebooks from the past, electronic tablets, even books. yes, outside under the overhang everything is neater. boxes consolidated and emptied, a tower built of them for the cat to hang out. maybe if i threw out all those empty boxes? but i may need them!

and this gets me thinking about the human species. am i merely part of this huge mass bent on survival? a tiny cog in the machinery of a species' drive for continuation? WHAT IF I WOKE UP IN THE MORNING AS A STATISTIC? even being cockroach, thought Kafka, better than that. and carl jung said, 'never think of yourself as a number'. 

well, in the forest service everybody has a designation, patrol 22, chief 1, and so on. obviously we're interchangeable, nobody indispensable. i have locker 5, shoes ll, eyes 20-20. i only believe in what can be measured. ah, the great gift of money: a human being according to its usefulness to the species can be assessed. think of all humanity swimming in a petri dish, under a microscope. fat and thin, winners and losers, pale or black. the individual aim is to out-smart  the competition.

and this brings me to the nature of consciousness itself. are we really different from cats and antelopes? they have just as much consciousness as they need to get along under the circumstances. and if those change drastically, they may not be able to cope. voila', extinction! human beings have invented ways to adapt, especially using language. ice-cap, the sahara, sumatra, it doesn't matter. our thinking makes us so. 

obviously, my mind is merely meant to keep me alive and kicking. alas, as a member of the human condition, i have brain too big for me. worrying about adapting, i extend my cogitations into philosophy (the nature of the universe), art (finding perfection somewhere), politics (kill or be killed). and the most dangerous enemy, besides myself, is other people.

think of the landscape covered with anthills. in isolation ants of each location have mutated into beings slightly different. i'm standing on mine, watching those neighboring red ants invading my territory. sure, they're like me, but not quite. so, are the red or the black to rule, to conquer both kingdoms? this seems alien to the survival of the species. what if we kill each other off? and leave the world to the grasshoppers? yet, we probably won't disappear, one side upending the other. 

to outwit every other species on earth, we've driven our minds to distraction, we've misused the urge to live, and i'm stuck with extension chords, cameras, hard-drives. maybe i'll need them in the fight for tomorrow. and will mars save us, or the moon, colonies of blue and purple ants? only if i can out-think the universe, and the universe gets stranger every day, mutating as i do. 

Signs, from www.pbase.com/wwp