Jamie
28-07-2004, 17:11
It is hilarious to consider that every weekend hundreds of millions of men venture forth into their yard. It would be understandable if they would go there to relax in a hammock, sipping a cool drink. Instead, they spend truly prodigious amounts of money to water their lawn, to fertilize it, to weed it.
They then proceed to move their lawn and to harvest mountains of hay and potential silage. Since they have no use for all these valuable farm products, they have to pay to have it hauled away to the city dump.
Why do mature adults engage in such apparently futile behavior? As evidenced by all human behavior, men do these foolish things because they are automatons, driven by their genes. Their genes inform them that it is desirable to have lush, green vegetation around their abode.
Obviously, this behavior was a potent survival factor a million years ago when a lush green environment was an indicator of superior fecundity and prosperity. Only those early persons survived and perpetuated their genes who consistently considered a lush, green environment as essential to their well-being. People who preferred an environment that was brown because it could not bear vegetation, perished.
A million years later, genes still compel their human hosts to prefer the color green over the color brown and, therefore, they grow a lawn in front of their homes. Persons with a higher degree of rationality perceive the utter futility of maintaining, harvesting and destroying green vegetation.
Instead of pushing a lawn mover, why can we not turn our lawn into an artistically pleasing rock garden? With a little waterfall, maybe, to appease the genes that compel us to like water in all its manifestations. Does anyone still insist on organic materials? Tree-bark will solve this problem handsomely.
All of our likes and dislikes embedded themselves into our genes eons ago. We are our genes and we are the slaves of our genes unless we allow our rationality to prevail over obsolete genes.
They then proceed to move their lawn and to harvest mountains of hay and potential silage. Since they have no use for all these valuable farm products, they have to pay to have it hauled away to the city dump.
Why do mature adults engage in such apparently futile behavior? As evidenced by all human behavior, men do these foolish things because they are automatons, driven by their genes. Their genes inform them that it is desirable to have lush, green vegetation around their abode.
Obviously, this behavior was a potent survival factor a million years ago when a lush green environment was an indicator of superior fecundity and prosperity. Only those early persons survived and perpetuated their genes who consistently considered a lush, green environment as essential to their well-being. People who preferred an environment that was brown because it could not bear vegetation, perished.
A million years later, genes still compel their human hosts to prefer the color green over the color brown and, therefore, they grow a lawn in front of their homes. Persons with a higher degree of rationality perceive the utter futility of maintaining, harvesting and destroying green vegetation.
Instead of pushing a lawn mover, why can we not turn our lawn into an artistically pleasing rock garden? With a little waterfall, maybe, to appease the genes that compel us to like water in all its manifestations. Does anyone still insist on organic materials? Tree-bark will solve this problem handsomely.
All of our likes and dislikes embedded themselves into our genes eons ago. We are our genes and we are the slaves of our genes unless we allow our rationality to prevail over obsolete genes.