tIf you take just a cursory look at a paleontology book, you will realize that life’s been around for a long time. When multicellular life proliferated 543 million years ago, it began a “purifying” process that ultimately led to you. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution passed without the super intelligence you possess. The heaven of your life was preceded by a purgatory of evolutionary trials.
Purgatorius unio appears to have been among the first species in that state of “purifying” human-like forms. But that was a long time ago, even before the extinction of the dinosaurs. The little creature was mouse-like or shrew-like in form, and probably possessed the intelligence of similar animals today, intelligence sufficient for finding food, mates, and shelter. The journey to your heaven of computers, machines, and diets was a long and punishing one: Major and minor extinctions acted like sieves through which only certain families of animals squeezed. Obviously, your ancestral line made it through every such barrier; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Purgatorius, if it could reason, would be proud of its offspring.
So, the millions of years have led to you. That’s not a fact to be taken lightly. Not one of the multicellular life-forms antecedent to or subsequent to Purgatorius lived through all those millions of years. Every critter was a temporary resident in the purgatory of “purification.” Every one of them hadn’t reached your “heavenly existence.” Each spent time in a purgatory engendered by the imperfections of its ancestry.
Now here you are, obviously the product of more than five hundred million years of change and more than 65 million years of primate development. Like your billions of ancestors you, too, are temporarily here, possibly another undergoing the “purification” leading to another heavenly state, some post-you human. You won’t, like Purgatorius way back when, be cognizant of your role in the process, but, thanks to the many previous Purgatorii, you can be cognizant of your current heavenly state. You know, unlike your ancient primate ancestor, that you are just a temporary resident. You might be an evolutionary step toward yet another heaven, and in retrospective light you might be seen as living in an antecedent purgatory. The difference between you and all those that lived in previous purgatories is that you are aware and have the intelligence to use this time of purification with purposes beyond mere survival.
Purgatorius was a preparation for you. Wouldn’t it be rewarding to think your descendants might acknowledge that you truly lived if not in a heaven then on the heavenly side of your purgatory? Your decisions and actions might become the fossilized evidence that life had, indeed, reached a new level of “purification.”
Purgatorius unio appears to have been among the first species in that state of “purifying” human-like forms. But that was a long time ago, even before the extinction of the dinosaurs. The little creature was mouse-like or shrew-like in form, and probably possessed the intelligence of similar animals today, intelligence sufficient for finding food, mates, and shelter. The journey to your heaven of computers, machines, and diets was a long and punishing one: Major and minor extinctions acted like sieves through which only certain families of animals squeezed. Obviously, your ancestral line made it through every such barrier; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Purgatorius, if it could reason, would be proud of its offspring.
So, the millions of years have led to you. That’s not a fact to be taken lightly. Not one of the multicellular life-forms antecedent to or subsequent to Purgatorius lived through all those millions of years. Every critter was a temporary resident in the purgatory of “purification.” Every one of them hadn’t reached your “heavenly existence.” Each spent time in a purgatory engendered by the imperfections of its ancestry.
Now here you are, obviously the product of more than five hundred million years of change and more than 65 million years of primate development. Like your billions of ancestors you, too, are temporarily here, possibly another undergoing the “purification” leading to another heavenly state, some post-you human. You won’t, like Purgatorius way back when, be cognizant of your role in the process, but, thanks to the many previous Purgatorii, you can be cognizant of your current heavenly state. You know, unlike your ancient primate ancestor, that you are just a temporary resident. You might be an evolutionary step toward yet another heaven, and in retrospective light you might be seen as living in an antecedent purgatory. The difference between you and all those that lived in previous purgatories is that you are aware and have the intelligence to use this time of purification with purposes beyond mere survival.
Purgatorius was a preparation for you. Wouldn’t it be rewarding to think your descendants might acknowledge that you truly lived if not in a heaven then on the heavenly side of your purgatory? Your decisions and actions might become the fossilized evidence that life had, indeed, reached a new level of “purification.”
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