THEORY OF EVOLUTION

This weekend, as I was flying back from the Heartland, or what some refer to as God's Country, after spending the previous two nights tossing uncomfortably on a smallish motel bed and the night before that flying to a variety of airport destinations, I had what is referred to as a revelation, though knowing as I do that I am not an incredibly brilliant man, only marginally so, and knowing also that biology and evolutionary theory is not my field of study, the genesis of my brilliance can hardly be called an epiphany on the scale of a Newton or Darwin, though if it is to be so then I am not one to arrogantly refuse accolades or awards or a tenure-track position at one of our country's great schools of higher education.

And have you noticed how when the body is sleep-deprived the mind drifts in and out of mentual acuity? Sure, there are the confusing moments, like when for ten minutes my mind became stuck on what seemed to be the incredibly complex - though nonetheless imagined - etymology of the word "calamity". Calamity. It does not mean what it seems it should mean. What should it mean, then? A fun-house parlor game. A stiff drink. Something other than " an event that brings terrible loss, lasting distress, or severe affliction." The word has a ring of jocularity to it. Calamity.

But regardless there are also moments of calm and steadiness; of a perfectly altered perspective, a sharp focus. And it was during one of those moments that I devised my brilliant thesis of evolutionary change. One that will no doubt revolutionize the current curriculum and also unite Evolutions and Creationists, will enjoy the knowledge we have accrued and leave hope for further advances of study.

Unfortunately, at the moment I am entirely exhausted and am having another "Calamity" moment. I should not have brought that up again. Calamity? Regardless, I hope to regale you later with my theory. In the meantime, let me just say that it has surely been proposed and rejected outright before, and my small moment of brilliance was little more than a misfiring neuron, the same sort of spontaneously devised ethos that often visit craftsman and bricklayers and all those others whose minds, while not entirely occupied by their owner's profession, find busywork crafting philosophies and histories of invaluable worth, beliefs which are almost uniformly idiotic and wrong.

Life as endless calamity.