According to Loren Eiseley’s world view, if we arose from the primordial ooze, we were part of the food chain long after the birth of the angiosperms and rise of the mammals; living among and upon the trees, where we discovered tool use. Thanks to a high energy compact food supply in the form of fruit, seed and flower bearing plants our brains grew large and our tools more sophisticated; we were ready to come down out of the trees.
We were still prey, but also well along since by that time our appendages had developed into efficient forms of specialization, and now we had weapons to mitigate the need to outrun predators and better protect our young. Our big brains and efficient bodies demanded greater and greater appetites for energy, now our weapons enabled us to hunt down prey, and then, quite by accident, we discovered fire.
As it turns out, we were made for walking. Bipedal mammals with big brains, powerful weapons and voracious appetites; it’s no wonder we’re here.
How long we will dwell here is anyone’s guess, as is what comes after us; what is certain is that there is a timeline. Competition for survival is fierce and resources are always at issue. All species must eventually make room for others, the price paid for dominance.
The Virgil Effect
Ever since the Virgil story (The Spell of Ai, chapter 6, Aug. 05, 2023), my attention has been captured by a recent spate of walker sightings. Not adventuresome walkers with a destination, or pleasure seekers out for a stroll; these are walkers either escaping something or seeking something. Destitute walkers whose final possession is their very liberty to walk. They are walking from something and toward something. Bereft of comforts and estranged they have the look of desperate migration with only one option left to them - to walk. They represent an indicator.
The Walker is another metaphor, a spirit that walks the Earth and is as real as anything can be. Wearing many robes, sometimes a Traveller, sometimes a Spellbinder, sometimes a Fearsome Deity, sometimes a Walker. Where these are walking and why is as much a mystery as where we are going and why; but walking is what they do, and walking is what we are made for. We walk for pleasure, we walk for health, we walk for acquisition, we walk for survival.
Survival seems to be the impulse that is driving the walkers we’re currently seeing, and it’s not getting easier. The Walker can also be a Messenger. Those of us with big brains should know enough to hear their message because it is clear enough. The struggle for resources is all encompassing when competition escalates, there is little energy left for much else when scarcity arises. When all else is failing, we will walk, while we are able; that’s what we are made to do.
How long we will walk the Earth is anyone’s guess. Walking is a decision. Survival is a decision. We have a lot of walking to do.
