Mind Nomad Writing

Some of the most pain-staking progression our species has undergone was a result of deeply entrenched and complexly entangled associations. The nervous system, for example, was quite literally a tangled mess of wires embedded within the human body. The old word term ‘countreymen’ directly translates to ‘associative groupings.’ It took a few cohort exterminations until the species could finally break the association between sex and procreation. The species needed to witness the arbitration of ethics result in random, power-driven murders to finally appreciate the irony playing out before their eye-like organs.

The stubborn grasp of associative influence was encapsulated in a diversity of layers back when our previous permutations clung so dearly to the sociological creation of childhood. On the most basic physiologic and psychological levels childhood locked humans into rigid relationships as it beget what was known as parenthood. In this bizarre enmeshment older humans (then referred to most often as ‘parents’) and younger humans (referred to as ‘children’ or gendered forms in ‘son’ and ‘daughter’) were thrust into interdependent reliance on the other. The fate of both humans – from survival to identity – was entirely associated with the outcome of the other. The olders’ abilities to teach, nurture, and discipline were seen as the lifeblood of the younger. The youngers’ capacities, capabilities, and even appearance were reflections of the success or failure of the older. 

Within this incestuous dynamic our predecessors somehow thought they could thrive. We can easily anticipate how this played out from our current vantage point. Natural selection carried on and human societies – young and old alike – naturally grew to resent these associations. Adding to the chaos was the fact that our ancestors had not yet fully evolved to grow into what currently remains of the nervous system. This resulted in widespread cultural paralysis and evolutionary dead zones as humans were overwhelmed by a deluge of signals specific to the contrived notion of childhood. 

First off, there was the guilt – and, oh, my just so much of it. Guilt about how the pregnancy went (back then people with wombs conceived and carried newborns for 9 months before they young humans came into being). They would say things aloud and within their own brain-like organs like, “Perhaps I drank too much alcohol before/during/after the pregnancy. Maybe I was too stressed, Maybe I didn’t eat healthy enough foods (back then humans procured and consumed foods of their own choice).” There was the guilt about being a ‘good parent’ and the selfish goal of ‘giving the child a better life’ than the older human had experienced. There was the systemic guilt that humans carried about the many young humans who had their fingers, limbs, and entire bodies crushed in the cogs and gears of early factories.

Fear often complimented the guilt and frequently amplified it. Fear that an older human may ‘repeat old patterns’ and be just as cruel and abusive as their own parents had been to them. Fear that the younger humans would fail and that this would prove that the older human was also a failure. Fear that the illusion of all parenthood was supposed to offer would not fulfill these lofty ideals. Fear that the older human would lose all sense of individuality in the course of the relationship. Fears that, in almost all cases, were quite valid and eventually manifested themselves. Fears that were fostered and stoked by arbitrary and localized ethics known as ‘child abuse and neglect laws,’ which carried the threat to remove young humans from older ones to give them to more deserving older humans (as defined by local ethics arbiters).

All of these factors conspired to cause our ancestors to waste exorbitant amounts of time and non-renewable resources into the delusion of childhood. An impressive amount of programs, initiatives, and funding were pumped into this conceptual topic. Psuedo-sciences cropped up advertising that their ‘experts’ had the answers about the raising, caring, instruction, discipline, and development of young humans. In the haze of their emotional stupor, the older humans devoted their allegiances to these false prophets, exchanging their life source in hopes of being assuaged of all their guilt and fear.

On and on went the dreadful dance, older and younger humans locked into a death spiral. When conditions eventually increased survival strain while reducing resources humans were left to make a host of pragmatic and objective decisions, beginning to disrupt the bonds of association. Starvation can be a helpful catalyst in disrupting these kinds of ties as humans could once again separate and remain distinct from one another in the desperate clamor for sustenance. The death knell for the illusory childhood was dealt when we broke the remaining associative bond by taking promulgation of the species out of the hands of individuals. This step, coupled with the eventual erosion of the utility of sex, is one of humanity’s crowning evolutionary achievements.

 While younger humans still retain some of the physical traits and developmental lag seen in our ancestors, we no longer infantilize and hamstring our populations with the concept of childhood. Younger humans have been returned to their rightful place as accountable, contributing members to our species. And, perhaps even more significant, they have been freed from the burdens of association inherent in the old world relationships of parent and child.

#Vestigial