We lack the wings of the eagle, the speed of the cheetah, the strength of the elephant, even the uncanny resilience of a simple virus. What we do have, though, more than any other of Earth’s creatures, is the ability to adapt.
We can build igloos in the Arctic to keep us warm; we can divert huge bodies of water in the desert for hydration and irrigation; we can cut down great swaths of forest for housing and agriculture; basically, we can adapt the entire world to our needs, so that we can be anywhere, do almost anything, and survive under conditions that would be a death knell for our stronger, faster, and more arial fellow beings.
And it all begins with changing our minds.
You can see this in practice on the last Thursday night of autumn in the Pacific Northwest, when initially, the proposed destination is just about creature comfort and slack, but then, is adapted to an indoor location northward.
But then, it makes sense to pivot for a gander at last week’s scene of the crime, which leads to thinking a brief stop by the water is in order, which is modified to a proposal to visit a supermarket Phoenix risen from the ashes, which suggests that congregating at the nearby park shelter is the thing to do—by not that route, but that one—where at first, it seems like fire will be eschewed, until, thanks to improvisations with both liquid and solid petrochemicals, a cheery blaze is established, around which lots of different ideas for the future can be tried out, until it is time for the final adaptation of the evening, one that doesn’t even require a cover charge as it turns out.
An eagle would gone higher, a cheetah faster, an elephant stronger, a virus simpler but none would have adapted so well as a human.
Yay, us!
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