I Gave You Power

When my Paleolithic ancestors -- if what Richard Dawkins says is true; though, really, who do you trust more, him or Jesus? -- roamed the earth, I can't be sure, but I'm fairly confident they didn't mock one another as liberally as we do nowadays.

Hey Bruno, get a load of Moon-Watcher. He gathers berries like old cro-magnons fornicate*.

<*translated from the Mongolian>

In fact, I'm convinced they didn't mock each other at all. I'm no anthropologist, but I do know that prehistoric man would, if shit got real, attempt to kill any perceived threat. Before things got that heavy, though, he'd try to intimidate his foe by beating his chest, snarling, and maybe even grabbing his simian nutsack.

Those were barbaric times. And while traces of our inherently bellicose nature are still easily recognizable in the animal kingdom and in human beings repressed by the tide of societal progress, where fight is possible but flight isn't, those of a more comfortable existence have learned to conquer their foes with intelligence instead of brute force.

Where once man's ability to rend flesh was considered the benchmark of superiority, it's been replaced by our talent to dominate fellow human beings with our minds. Strategy became a greater trait than strength for survival.

You can't teach a dog to be a cat, however. Man's goal is still the same, only tangible images of blood and sorrow are replaced with intangible words that most people don't understand (because they use the Internet). Physical pain is easier to relate to than mental torment, because it's more defined. As a species, we haven't yet evolved enough to recognize what hurts us on the same level but with no immediate agony, but just as the slightest physical pain is almost instant and quickly forgotten, emotional suffering of the same variety can last forever, unnoticed, unacknowledged. And we, as so-called enlightened beings in denial of our instictive evil, prefer it that way. Because we're stupid for the most part, and actions -- irony of ironies -- speak louder than words.

A word, phrase, or sentence can have as many meanings as a pile of shit has eyes, but it's pretty hard to convince a person that a beating, flogging, or, to make an extreme case, rape, is justifiable. Unless you're Korean, I mean.

Read that last sentence again. On the surface it appears confrontational. A casual reader of this blog might come across it, and depending on his or her personality, would file Psychedelic Kimchi in his or her brain pocket as either blatantly racist or satirical.

The point -- as long-winded as it may be -- is that you can't tell. Motives, agendas, grudges, gripes: all are veiled by what is our singular curse and our blessed gift, trickery, deception.

The power of the spoken and written word.

Evolution, dig it.