Remember the Great Chain of Being, the concept that all existence lies in a spectrum? No? Here it is in a nutshell: God, Angels, Man, Animals, Plants, Rocks. And on that chain there you are, a “little lower than the angels,” but above every other kind of existence, animate and inanimate, macro and micro, visible and invisible. Remember, too, that piece of fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Fruit? Isn’t that supposed to be good for us? If you read Genesis, you see we’ve been eating the stuff even before parents and health officials said it was good for us. And yet, there was that piece of fruit that Eve offered Adam, the fruit that started all our woes.
Let’s imagine those early hominids and hominins gathering around the fruit tree for supper. It was just a matter of picking. Oh! There might have been a squabble or two over getting the juiciest piece; there might have been some grumbling about not getting enough. But generally, those early ancestors should have been happy: Fruit was free for the taking.
I’m trying to picture Homo floresiensis or some other ancient human species picking up some fruit in the wild of Southeast Asia and eating it. Contrast that with the recent sale of a Thai Kanyao durian for $47,786 (or 1.5 million baht) as reported in the Jakarta Post. * Could any of our ancestors comprehend the folly generated by modern affluence? In the Great Chain of Being, are we really as high up the links as we think we are? One and a half million baht for a piece of fruit?
You know, I’d like to write more about this, to draw some lesson, to see into the psychology of paying nearly $50 K for a piece of fruit, but then I would have to ask myself about my indulgence in strawberries, fresh or frozen, in any season, regardless of my dwelling in Pennsylvania, where my local grocery store just sold me three bags of the frozen whole berries for $10. Am I not an example of foolish excess? Still, $47,786 for a single piece of fruit is a ridiculously excessive expenditure, unless the purchaser was donating money to some charity and was simply using the fruit auction as a whimsical philanthropic method.
And then there’s this headline from the Jakarta Post: “Smell of durian prompts evacuation of Australian university.” ** Somebody left a durian near an air vent in the school’s library. The fruit’s pungent odor made people panic over a possible gas leak. Officials sent in the hazmat crew in gas masks.
Yet, regardless of a durian’s smell, people apparently go bananas over a single durian. It is not unusual for someone to pay hundreds of dollars (or, obviously more) for one durian. Again, yes, one piece of fruit.
I’m running side-by-side images in my head: Two hominids out for some fruit, one from very long ago and the other from our own times. And I’m picturing, also, how complex human life has become when a misplaced piece of fruit sends a small population of beings who lie only one link below angels on the Chain of Being into a panic. Ah! Man. This is the creature about which the Biblical psalmist says, “You made him a little lower than the angels…You made him ruler of the works of Your hands; You have placed everything under his feet” (8:5). What could one wish the psalmist had written instead? “You gave this creature an insatiable desire for fruit and the means to serve it in any form: Fruit rollups, fruity vitamins, fruit salads, fruit pies, and a great number of drinks, but You might have—just sayin’, Big Greengrocer—added a little prudence and reality-checking to that brain.”
$47,786 for a durian? Are we really that high up on the Chain when our lesser cousin species and ancient ancestors picked up the stuff free?
* https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2019/06/10/single-thai-durian-auctioned-off-at-a-staggering-rm199289.html
** https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2019/05/15/smell-of-durian-prompts-evacuation-of-australian-university.html
Let’s imagine those early hominids and hominins gathering around the fruit tree for supper. It was just a matter of picking. Oh! There might have been a squabble or two over getting the juiciest piece; there might have been some grumbling about not getting enough. But generally, those early ancestors should have been happy: Fruit was free for the taking.
I’m trying to picture Homo floresiensis or some other ancient human species picking up some fruit in the wild of Southeast Asia and eating it. Contrast that with the recent sale of a Thai Kanyao durian for $47,786 (or 1.5 million baht) as reported in the Jakarta Post. * Could any of our ancestors comprehend the folly generated by modern affluence? In the Great Chain of Being, are we really as high up the links as we think we are? One and a half million baht for a piece of fruit?
You know, I’d like to write more about this, to draw some lesson, to see into the psychology of paying nearly $50 K for a piece of fruit, but then I would have to ask myself about my indulgence in strawberries, fresh or frozen, in any season, regardless of my dwelling in Pennsylvania, where my local grocery store just sold me three bags of the frozen whole berries for $10. Am I not an example of foolish excess? Still, $47,786 for a single piece of fruit is a ridiculously excessive expenditure, unless the purchaser was donating money to some charity and was simply using the fruit auction as a whimsical philanthropic method.
And then there’s this headline from the Jakarta Post: “Smell of durian prompts evacuation of Australian university.” ** Somebody left a durian near an air vent in the school’s library. The fruit’s pungent odor made people panic over a possible gas leak. Officials sent in the hazmat crew in gas masks.
Yet, regardless of a durian’s smell, people apparently go bananas over a single durian. It is not unusual for someone to pay hundreds of dollars (or, obviously more) for one durian. Again, yes, one piece of fruit.
I’m running side-by-side images in my head: Two hominids out for some fruit, one from very long ago and the other from our own times. And I’m picturing, also, how complex human life has become when a misplaced piece of fruit sends a small population of beings who lie only one link below angels on the Chain of Being into a panic. Ah! Man. This is the creature about which the Biblical psalmist says, “You made him a little lower than the angels…You made him ruler of the works of Your hands; You have placed everything under his feet” (8:5). What could one wish the psalmist had written instead? “You gave this creature an insatiable desire for fruit and the means to serve it in any form: Fruit rollups, fruity vitamins, fruit salads, fruit pies, and a great number of drinks, but You might have—just sayin’, Big Greengrocer—added a little prudence and reality-checking to that brain.”
$47,786 for a durian? Are we really that high up on the Chain when our lesser cousin species and ancient ancestors picked up the stuff free?
* https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2019/06/10/single-thai-durian-auctioned-off-at-a-staggering-rm199289.html
** https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2019/05/15/smell-of-durian-prompts-evacuation-of-australian-university.html
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