My Life As An Earth Worm

MY LIFE AS AN EARTH WORM:

MY LIFE AS AN EARTH WORM

I discovered the other day that I'm really an earthworm. All these years I thought I was human, but in reality I'm a slimy little invertebrate who crawls on his belly and has no idea where he is going. And worse than being blind, I have two brains, one at each end of my body, pushing and pulling me in and out of trouble, distorting my well-being in the process. I started to notice my earthworm characteristics a long time ago. At first I attributed them to psychotic human behavior, but now I understand them to be normal "night crawler" functions.

A classic earthworm activity commonly mistaken for human psychosis is the slime trail I leave wherever I go. All my life I've been able to walk into a room and immediately mess it up. It can be at home or at a friend's home or anywhere really. The moment I walk into the room the secretions from my earthworm body stick to anything in the surroundings, dragging them out of place with my every motion. Even if I straighten up the mess, the only way to keep my surroundings clean is to sit still; the moment I move, the slime trail starts.

Another earthworm attribute that I had mistaken for a dysfunction in the human world is my inability to see. Oh sure, I have eyes that look like human eyes, and sure I'm tricked into thinking I actually have vision, but in the day-to-day problem solving needed to survive and perpetuate my species, I spend most of my time simply groping in the dark. I'm forced to feel my way through situations and sometimes plow headfirst through some gauntlet, unable to see the extent of the task beforehand. And since I can't see where I'm going, I often have no idea where I've been. I just move through time becuause I'm supposed to, more aware of what I bump into than what's beyond my immediate surroundings.

Another part of my blindness stems from the fact that I choose to live underground. Sure there's no light, and there are lots of things to bump into, but the moist soil of habits and traditions offers greater security than the bright, open expanse of the world above. I don't have to worry about finding the life-giving water of new ideas, because there is stagnate, old-idea water all around me. I don't have to worry about being stranded in the scorching sun of criticism, becuase the sun never gets to me. I don't have to worry about finding fresh pastures, fresh relationships in which to graze because down here there is an endless supply of nutrients from the rotting remains of many other creatures' lives. In fact, the only danger I face is drowning in my own security. One really soaking rain storm, one flood of new thinking could surround me with too much water, forcing me to either surface and get air or die in the mud of indecision.

But the attribute that finally convinced me I was not human but worm is the schizophrenia of my thinking. I realized that what I believed were opposing thoughts coming from the one human brain are really the arguments of two worm brains working to push or pull me in their separate directions. One brain tells me to move forward, to seek new dirt through which to travel. The other brain senses the ease of the tunnels I've already created and pulls me back into the nostalgia and greater security of staying in familiar paths. Once brain tells me the right direction for bumping and tunneling. The other tells me to ignore what is right and instead to follow the path of least resistance, to find the easiest way to stay alive and maintain my well-being. These two brains are in constant combat, one winning one moment, the other winning the next. And as confusing as this is to me, it must be even more confusing to those around me who think I have one human brain and that the incosistency of my actions is due to some mental imbalance.

All these behaviors that made so little sense when I thought I was human now make perfect sense. All those years of feeling like a human failure are now replaced by the realization that I'm a successful worm. All those needless frustrations of trying to better my human nature are now replaced by the joy of knowing I'm an expert in worm nature. No more schizophrenia for me. Rather than continue as a human, faced with the realization that my life needs much work, how much easier it is to simply redefine my existence to fit the attributes I already have. How much easier it is to live as a lower life form than to work at becoming fully human.