An excerpt from the book Timequake by the recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut.
[all of the elements are holding a meeting to discuss what humans are doing with elements]
" Nitrogen wept about its involuntary servitude as parts of Nazi guards and physicians in death camps during WWII. Potassium told hair-raising stories about the Spainish Inquisition, and Calcium about the Roman Games, and Oxygen about black African slavery.
Sodium said enough was enough, that any further testimony would be coals to Newcastle. It made a motion that all chemicals involved in medical research combine whenever possible to create more powerful antibiotics. These in turn would cause disease organisms to evolve new strains that were resistant to them.
In no time, Sodium predicted, every human ailment, including acne and jock itch, would be not only incurable but fatal. "All humans will die," said Sodium, "As they were at the birth of the Universe, all elements will be free of sin again."
Iron and Magnesium seconded Sodium's motion. Phosphorus called for a vote. The motion was passed by acclamation. " (page 50)
6 comments:
Honestly, I don't get it.
Oh man, this is crazy, as I've been thinking much about the same thing for the past week.
I've actually been wondering if all these new strains of diseases that seem only to effect humans is nature's/god's way of getting rid of us (or at least our excess population). It's obvious, not to mention scientifically proven that we are way above the sustainable population capacity for the world we live on.
Could nature have a way of fixing this problem itself?
This is an interesting piece... thanks Annie :)
Right from the preliminary line: "all of the elements are holding a meeting to discuss what humans are doing with elements," Vonnegut's piece begs the question, "How/why should we distinguish humans from elements, IF humans are mere masses of elements?
Anthropomorphism always awakens me to how I fall into the habit of treating the mere 'elements' of existence (power, money, time, natural resources, animals, opportunity) as trivial pawns of my life 'game'... and sadly, I'm often awakened to how often I use other people in the same ways that I use elements and toilet paper.
As for the perception that, "...all these new strains of diseases that seem only to effect humans," I suspect that we notice these new strains simply because they affect us... humnas. If we were evil frogs, we would most likely notice all the new anti-flipper strains of diseases, and wonder if the swamp gods were punishing us... maybe.
Ribbit.
I just caught a TV commercial by DOW Chemicals, that ends with the line :
The human element… nothing is more fundamental… nothing more elemental.
The commercial can be streamed by following the link below; scroll down to the bottom of the page where you'll find a faux periodic ‘human’ element [Hu].
http://news.dow.com/dow_news/dowtv/index.htm
What do you guys think of the content of the ad?
I get it.
I remember that commercial----- I thought it was such a sweet and pointless little heartfelt soliloquy- Until I realized it was just a commercial trying to sell things. That was awfully disappointing.
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