The Dance of the Ages

The Dance of the Ages

Samuel Bird

In a pine box I built twice the length of my boot long and half the length wide, is some dirt. It is the high plains soil from outside my small home, filled with rocks and with only a small offering of nutrients. Against those odds and my failure to water a consistent amount and only the sunlight through my window, plants are beginning to sprout from the dark earth. Peas, tomatoes, beats, radishes, strawberries, wildflowers, and many more are emerging from the ground as a sort of dance into life. The round leaves like the dresses and the thinner leaves are like the coattails of the ball guests. I look with wonder at the simplicity and yet complexity in the patterns that make them up. They sprout from the depths and emerge to seek after that which gives it life. They crane and turn themselves to catch every ray that they can. While you would do well to question their sentience, they seek to live. No matter the metaphysical claim that makes up our world, something about these plants is trying to survive. Why? Why would it labor so hard just to exist when it knows it will only die? However, this fact doesn’t seem to stop their dance of the ages as they are starting to blossom with all their enthusiasm. Why strive to survive when death’s stagnation meets life on the ballroom floor? Why seek to be when the inevitability of non-being lurks behind every misfortune and certainly before the end of time? The grand show of life is not without its intention. These plants, for all the thoughts they can’t think, have an aim with their existence. The peas will make pods that house the seeds to start a life anew. In the heart of the tomato are its codes to replicate itself with the loving and nurturing gift of the nutrients from the tomato itself. The strawberry wishes that a bird would enjoy its sweet fruit at the expense of its life, if it could only carry those seeds off to sprout anew. I try to keep life around me to remind me of what I am and what I must go to. The insects, the birds, the farm animals outside my home, all are striving against facts of the world that aren’t made for their benefit, simply so they could create something more. Many plants and insects such as the praying mantis, die as a result of this continuation of being, yet they go eagerly into death to continue life. Through the perils of reality, life dances. 

History is filled with many series of facts that to choose which one we put in our textbooks, we have to evaluate their significance. Then, we will then decipher the meaning of those facts with that same value system. A Marxist and a Fascist will see any story as the instance of their ideas. If it is a necessary fact of a limited mind that we will construct our experience, then as Esse Maxim asks, how should we? A series of general ideas that have been popular to make sense of the macro human experience is war, social power, and critical theory. I have my thoughts here and since I am no wallflower I have certainly touched on them before, however, I seek to not negate, but posit. What then do I propose as a possible viewpoint to weigh the marching of time as souls see it? A love story. This realization came to me via reverse engineering the question. Due to highly deliberate but unquestioning social engineering, there has been an imbalance of mates or a disturbance in the sexual marketplace. As far as this is the case, those same people began to divest from life. The impossibility of creating new life with someone that makes you feel like you belong seems to correlate with a lack of action in the world. I began to think about what I had witnessed of human behavior outside of the textbook. What commonalities were at play in all sorts of people I could find? Life. Within each of us is the biological imperative to perpetuate our kind. We can socialize this to be disgusting, perverted, or oppressive, but only on the other side of reproduction can the mind find the immortality it searches for. I want to be clear, I will die. My consciousness is clearly demarcated from others, however, all the grandeur and agony of being will now be afforded by someone that holds my blood. Continuing this bloodline is quite the privilege. The story of history is men laboring to express to women that they have blood worth passing on and that they will support her in her trevails. This is the greatest and most divine of sacrifices that women undertake, and they seek security. In a gesture of grandeur, cathedrals were built, oceans traversed, and ideas created, all with the intention of showcasing quality and ability such that they were an adequate mate. The world we live in with its complex institutions, powerful infrastructure. It isn’t just to make the sale and win the mate, once the child is brought into the world, they will need all the more resources. Right now, men toil in fields with bloody knuckles and sweaty brows to make sure they can stop by a grocery store on the way home to get food and perhaps a small toy for their children. These heroes ask for no commendation or reward, because they receive their payment. The love of a parent is so deep, honest, and powerful, that your desires for your children become your own and hence their needs are your selfish quests. I am certainly saying what I think a parent should be when they flourish and not saying how I think all are. I was a child that was left without the nourishment of my parents. It was humbling to realize that this way I knew was not what I wished for. Like the swaddling mother bear, the nursing cow, or the feeding bird, I recognize there is more than just starting the continuation of the bloodline. You need to see it through. 

Despite having no current romantic prospects, I read as much as I can on child rearing. From a young age I watched parents that seemed to be effective to see what they did and to forget what I was taught. As my professions have lead me to work with many people, I have constantly asked the same question of everyone that carried a diaper bag or had a toy in their hand: “What is your best parenting advice?” More than just the creation of the organism of the child, there is a need to support their creation of the rest of their character. I spoke with a woman yesterday who said that her daughter’s father was not in their lives. He would send all the money they needed, but the girl needed a father. No matter how we socialize against it, there is a reason nature in all its coincidental reasons sexed us so. The thick bone structure, larger muscles, and bearded face, are all designed to work and protect. Living under the protection and care of a father is so necessary, the human mind has looked for the paternal in the sky above them. The child is no more complete without the mother. Breasts made to nurture and soothe, bips made to rest a child on, and emotions designed to see the heart of the child make an ideal climate to care for the child. I will no doubt get backlash for these ideas. However, I am not saying that the social role of either must be a certain way. Disagreement on your part will make me wonder if you long for this ideal familial structure. I think that the extended family should also be involved in a sort of tribe as well, but that is less core to my case. At the very least, I hope every child has a powerful father that looks off into the woods with a loving fury in his heart, as a safe and secure wife cares for the child to his rear. More than just the organism, the consciousness of this child is in need of development. As the child begins to ask copious questions about the world around it, I think it deserves parents that can address its questions. The first great philosopher is the child, and it needs its Athenian marketplace. I hope to do great things with my life, but continuing the unbroken line of being into the future via having and developing children may well be the greatest thing I ever do. 

I am looking at sexuality in terms of what it results in, however, the role of sex has changed in a society that is shifting to and fro. With the utilitarian ground value of pleasure, sex was moved from a private and central part of ourselves to a means to pleasure. If sex was then about pleasure, then how we treated sex would change. It would not be a pairing off so that everyone could have a mate and a chance to perpetuate their blood. Rather, it became a violent free-for-all, where people used each other as means primarily to achieve copulation. In fact, when children inevitably came from this on occasion, it was seen as a mistake and those children were not given the basis mentioned earlier for sufficient rearing. This great dance of life against all odds was stopped by the most aggressive vote against life: Antinatalism. In this idea, some variation of life or children were deemed of so little merit as to not be worth existence. If you can really say existence is so net terrible, then how can you not vote against your life by ending it? These cases are not without their grounding. While I am critical of the sexual revolution, I am understanding that the drive to create life needs to be simulated in a world that has less and less place for it. Humans are creatures that change their world rather than their organism. Yet, in the world we created, we somehow didn’t make room for ourselves. Where can we find instances of those facts in the world around us that stem from within us? Where has beauty fled, meaning vanished, and value sunk? With the world as it is varying from the world our organism was forged in, something deep within us cried for reprieve. Will the world harm the child or the child harm the world such that it is better to never have been born? As I find the world more torn by the hubris of our hedonism, I see cause for concern and I understand why this great drive to create life has become a toy we play with. However, my blood didn’t well up in the primordial mud and was carried between plains and battlefields to stop in me. The great dance of life is one the greatest values within the minds of the only thing that can value. So, at all costs the love story must continue as the faces of me and someone I love combine in a new, fresh, and beautiful face to greet the world. Though I fear for my children, the turtle knows not all will make it, but the fact that any turtle could, was meritorious enough to make the dance worth it. And what of the world and its fractured state? A parent creates a body, but a great parent creates a mind. To the troubles the world faces, I give it a gift. I give it a child I fostered to be conscientious, engaged, and deliberate. While you may say the world has too many people, I will say it can never have enough of the greats. 

I find myself at the ballroom's edge. I have asked a few young women to dance. Some yeses and some nos, but no one to truly court. I feel that sense of urgency that is passed on to me because my ancestors also had it. Questions of, if I am ready, if I have the resources and might, or how much it will hurt are assuaged by the rhythm carried that takes me away. Something of instinct comes alive in me and doesn’t need much help from me. Emotions well up how and where is needed. The fear that checks if my genes are worth passing on is met with the bravery that only comes from hope. A gentle nod, a question, and a hand grasped tenderly. Lead to where the music carries us away, we start in ritual. Each leading step of mine to pave the way and each gentle smile from her to assure me. Us, like all of life, begins our courtship. The spiraling of her dress like the vines of a plant. The music is like the calls of the bird looking for his mate. The motion is like the display of a stag. The dance swells and flows. All my being seems to fall in place with hers as belonging meets confusion. All I ever was or would be were brought into this moment to demonstrate what larger thing I was being a part of. The great wonders of childhood, the passions of youth, the labors of adulthood, and the celebration of later years I would feel would now be gifted to a young being. In my eyes, this child would carry the smile, nose, and eyes of someone I love and someone I have learned to care for. As we spin and sway to a music resonates deep within us, in crescendos to a peak until at last the final note of the songs rings out and I am left in tender silence with this woman I am now tied to, and grateful to be so. The pleasure of the dance is not the only value to come. Years of watching our child learn to navigate the world around them will sear into my mind as the most beautiful. I’ll get to watch them wrestle with all the questions Esse Maxim addresses. My experience will be shared by them. The time will come that they start their own dance and bring me bright and beautiful young faces I find my own and the face of my love in. Their faces will also carry the aesthetics of their new love they danced with. The day will come when I realize time has given me all it could. I will be preparing to cease. And while I will surely die and cease to be forever unless God safekept a heaven for me, I will never leave this earth. This organism that carried my mind is continued on through them. Words and moments shared will allow my very soul to linger on in their minds. Originality, philosophy, and God Himself have given me chances and adventures never before had, but the one I will cherish most may well be that same adventure all life embarks on: The dance of the ages