Category: Uncategorized

Wild Rodents

For the last few weeks, as I walked down the driveway to retrieve the paper and bring in the trash can, I’ve noticed a scene from an old Disney cartoon playing on the front lawn. Grouped in the shade of our large Japanese red maple tree, a gathering of local cute wildlife. Three chipmunks, two squirrels, a small rabbit for all the world appearing to enjoy a quiet tea party .

As they see me, they scatter, each in their own ways. Chipmunks scurry into nearby underbrush, squirrels scramble chasing each other up the tree trunk, the rabbit more sedately hops to the far end of the yard. Kind of neat .

Squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits are not much of a problem around here, even if they eat a few flowers. Most of us would certainly rather enjoy them than find a snake, mosquitoes, or raccoon. A lot better than a rat pack. Not quite as astonishing as a brilliantly colored bird .

That any wildlife survives and even thrives in crowded suburbs constantly amazes me. I’m grateful of course, and happily use each sighting as a point of current contemplation. It’s important to not treat such miracles as a boring commonplace. I’m quite happy to share the planet, (at least with the ones I like, most of the time. Mea culpa) .

Our environment is a much better place with a certain diversity of life forms. Probably a little less machine ubiquity .

Stability

Evolution is real. We have made sense of fossil records, understood how DNA makes it possible, experimented on fruit flies. I do not need to assume a god is responsible for design any more than I need believe that a god made possible my phone call to the plumber because some being had to design and decree the rules of electricity .

It’s troubling that we continue to believe in the wisdom of the ancients (a mere couple of centuries ago) when they were clueless about modern cosmology, biology, ecology, and physics. They were quite ignorant folks, making up rules to fit each fantasy of why the world is as it is .

I’m guilty of some of the same. I try to understand evolution, but I have trouble with time. I often can’t remember what happened last week but I calmly say life changes to fit changing conditions over incomprehensible eras . I think modern humans have ”only” been around for a few hundred thousand years, the dinosaurs were wiped out “only” 85 million years ago, life on Earth began “only” 1 billion years after the sphere settled down. It all seems tidy, rapid, comprehensible. 

But the key for life is how it is formulated in stability. DNA is an almost insanely complex mechanism to keep things the same. Environments tend to last a long time. Life adapts – slowly – within stable limits. Breathless news may report rapid mutations in viral diseases. Yet for all that – the end result is still a virus, doing almost exactly the same thing. Giant leaps in morphology are probably mythical .

This essay is composed as biologic support for my contention that most of us crave some security. Naturally.

Rembrandt

Through many self-identifications with other people – especially artists – I’ve always come back to Rembrandt as one of the finest. Not so much for his immense talent – all my heroes have had talent way beyond my own – as for his immersion in a life filled with ups and downs .

I mostly enjoy the way all of his sketches – and how many of them there are! – live and breathe. Each capturing a moment, as often as not seemingly just for the fun of it. No grand idea of using them later – just pick up a pen or brush and engage.

Oh, it’s a grand conceit. But I like reviewing his life with all its disappointments and hardships, its occasional triumphs. Follow the posthumous evaluation of his major and minor works, right up to the current near deification after for a while being almost trash compared to all those Italians and later French .

Each of us can choose whom we admire, living or dead. Whether or not we are much like them. Pick appropriate characteristics to emulate (even though we may often be wrong objectively).

I find that Rembrandt is one of the few totems with whom I can easily reestablish a resonance. A fresh breath of air whenever my own spirit rises too high or sinks too low .