Okay, so where were we in our little discussion of earlier in the week?  Oh yeah: No god.  We’re animals.

Our animal nature shapes everything we do.  We have aspired to evolve out of and outgrow some of our more base behaviors, but as noble as that effort may be, there is only so far it can possibly go.  There are limits to how physically large each species of animal can ever evolve to become.  Consider the cockroach.  I had the extreme displeasure of once holding a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, perhaps the largest cockroach in the world.  I hated that thing so much.  I had the natural instinct to throw it to the ground and stomp it to death, but it was so big that there was a better-than-zero chance that it would not only fight back, but win.  So I didn’t stomp it to death.  But it’s the thought that counts.  Anyway, I bring this awfulness up because the only reason this bug isn’t significantly bigger than it is (after all, it’s had several million more years of evolution (and exponentially shorter generations) than humans have…had there been no restraints, these things would be the size of elephants.  But that will never happen (thank Christ) because this is as large as an insect can grow without needing to develop lungs.  And insects don’t have lungs…that’s the rules.  Put another way, the cockroach, just like every other animal, has evolved about as far as it can evolve without violating its nature.  And even if you could somehow force it to do so, the result would no longer be a cockroach, or even an insect.  The largest animal on earth, the blue whale, has evolved to be as large as it can ever get.  Perhaps bone structure and strength play a factor, but food supply is the main issue.  The larger an animal gets, the more food it needs to survive, and there simply isn’t enough zooplankton in the ocean to support animals any bigger than blue whales as they are now. To do so would require it to develop teeth and other digestive abilities so extremely different than what it has that, again, the result of such an evolution, even if possible, would yield something that was no longer a while, by definition.  Like the nasty ass roach mentioned supra, the blue whale has evolved as much as it can without violating its own nature.

Are you still with me?  I know this is getting pretty heady.  This isn’t where I wanted to leave it for tonight, dear reader, but leave it here for tonight I must.  I’ve got some work on the book to do before the night gets away from me.

N.P.: “A Tout Le Monde [Set Me Free] – Megadeth