I used to be a merciless Darwinist.
It looked something like this:
Evolution is a reality and if you are not strong enough to survive you shouldn't.
The irony was that as an infant with a head far too big to fit through my mother's birth canal, this ideology would have no-doubt rendered me dead.
I'm still a Darwinist.
I idolize the orchid and believe in bio-mimicry something fierce, but thankfully my thoughts have evolved and I have managed to identify some of the many problems associated with the latter half of my former ruthless credo.
I have also come to hope that life can be more than mere survival.
And so began the exceptions....
I have some strong friends in weak places and some solid friends who have been dealt shitty hands. Our fiercely independent swaggers are nothing more than street theater. This is not to say we don't preform well. Many of us would have made good actors. But the truth is our fierce claims of freedom and independence are as misguided as my moments of militant Darwinism. We are all affected. Our freedom is tied up in the well being and freedom of our global co-inhabitants. I love my bikes, but somewhere some malnourished child working for 2 dollars a day probably cut the tubes that I'm riding on. Call it interdependece, interconnection, life, or whatever word suits your fancy.
When I was fourteen my grandmother told me that she never would have moved to New Hampshire if she knew the license plates said, "Live Free or Die".
You're right Gran... it isn't that simple.
And I'm glad you're moving to New York.
