Just the NYT review
was enough to confirm
the handwriting on the wall
of the firmament
ā at least for one unchained biochemical reaction in the Anthropocene,
in one small speck of the Universe,
for one small speck of a species,
too big for its breeches.
The inevitable downfall of the egregious upstart
would seem like fair come-uppance
were it not for all the collateral damage
to its countless victims,
without and within.
But is there a homology
between biological evolution
and cosmology?
Is the inevitability of the adaptation of nonhuman life
to human depredations
— until the eventual devolution
or dissolution
of human DNA —
also a sign that
humankind
is destined to keep re-appearing,
elsewhere in the universe,
along with life itself?
and all our too-big-for-our breeches
antics?
I wish not.
And I also wish to register a vote
for another mutation, may its tribe increase:
Zombies.Ā
Insentient organisms.Ā
I hope they (quickly) supplant
the sentients,
till there is no feeling left,
with no return path,
if such a thing is possibleā¦
But there too, the law of large numbers,
combinatorics,
time without end,
seem stacked against such wishes.
Besides,
sentience
(hence suffering),
the only thing that matters in the universe,
is a solipsistic matter;
the speculations of cosmologists
( like those of ecologists,
metempsychoticists
and utilitarians)
— about cyclic universes,
generations,
incarnations,
populations —
are nothing but sterile,
actuarial
numerology.
It’s all just lone sparrows,
all the way down.