In the beginning there was no one to notice anything and the
mountains grew and the rivers cooled the land. The grass grew and animals
grazed but no one knew to pay attention. One day, one thing saw himself as
himself and saw that he was a thinking thing and knew that he had not gotten
there by accident.
As we walked around, alone, he saw the animals and grass and
trees and light and he called them all by words to make sense of his world.
“There must have been those before me who were thinking
things” he thought.” And those before them. At some point there had to have
been a leap towards realization that we are thinking things”, he thought. He
found another who had begun to think and he showed her his words and helped her
make sense of her world.
He watched the snake as it shed its skin, rebirthing itself, newly naked.
“I don’t understand,” he thought – why does he lose his skin and start over?
Can I do that? The snake moved towards a tree and the thing beheld a fruit on
the tree. “Can the fruit do that?” he wondered. "Whose tree is this? Should I be eating this fruit or will I get sick?" As he reached for the fruit, it
fell from the tree and sat, bruised at his feet. Immediately, he felt ashamed, having caused the fruit to be unconnected. He came back later and the fruit
had browned, and withered. It had not lost its skin, and it is had not been
reborn. The snake fled.
The man understood that he could not remove his skin and
that he, like the fruit, was destined to fall from the tree and wither and die.
He cursed the snake for making him aware of this. “How can I stay alive and not
be like the fruit?” He asked. Then he thought about those who came before him. “If
I remember them, then they are as if still alive! I must go and continue my
living by making others who can remember me.” And he and the other had children
so as to live beyond when they fall and bruise and wither and die.
