If You Had Had A Hand In Deciding Whether To Come To This World....

At first glance, the above question may look like an absurd one.

It acknowledges that one's presence being on Earth had nothing to do with one. But it then asks one to second-guess the processes by which one was created – (without prior agreement!)

Is that fair?

Yet the question is definitely worth cogitating upon – if for nothing else, as a purely philosophical exercise. After all, the viewpoint that “the unexamined life is not worth living” is worth the occasional thought or two, is it not?

But really, what's the point of spending time debating an issue over which one had no control? Over which, no matter what one's conclusion is, one can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it?

Haha! It's the sort of issue which occupies your mind when, thanks to COVID-19, you cannot go out to seek human company without putting on a mask that makes you look like a snouted rodent. Or a Boko Haram recruit!

But let me try and answer it.

If I were not already in the world, and was shown a video of it and asked whether I'd like to make the journey into it or not, I think what would make me want to come would be – the birds!

I cannot imagine any sight more beautiful than two birds mating on the wing!

They start on the ground; or the roof of a building; or on the branch of a tree.

The male one indulges in unusual behaviour: flying round the female; turning cartwheel in the air to display the incredibly colourful feathers he has hitherto hidden under his wings or his tail. Meanwhile, his head bops up and down, up and down.

Or – if they are perched on a tree branch, he male takes some weird steps towards the female. His steps are unusual at this stage – it's as if he was trying to show her that he could transform one step into two and yet not fall off!

Display, display, display!

But the female pretends it's not impressed, and drives the male off with a sharp clap of its wings, followed by a hostile-looking nibble-by-the-bill.

However, in a short while, she flies into the air. Neither too fast, nor too slow. It's not giving anything away. Yet.

Aha – what subtle signal does she finally give to the male which tells him that if it flies after her this time, her mood could possibly be more receptive?

Human eyes cannot detect the sign, but the male easily reads it correctly. He approaches her and they touch each other's flesh in a flash – very very fast.

There's a flutter of feathers in the air, accompanied by a peck. Then a quick mount. Chickens and ducks, come and see and marvel, you slow-moving creatures!

And then, they let go of each other: one upwards, the other sideways or downwards..

As if they had told the laws of physics to go hang; that gravity had lost control over them, through the act of love. But they never fall to the ground, no matter how low and fast they might descend. They cry out and climb up; do a quick air-dance to shake off the constraints of orgasm. In steep movements and sideways swipes, they engage in subtle aerobatics. They circle around each other, pretending to collide. And then – they go their separate ways.

I have never seen a sight a more enchanting bit of aerial choreography.

So that's how birds populate our forests and habitations? What do they say to each other as they do that? Can human courting ever approach this sky-made magic?

I think and think of the human version of this peculiar activity. Why is the human act so often clumsy? More important: do birds too become disenchanted with each other, after a while? Does the female bird turn her head away – when touched – after a year or two?

As I ponder the vicissitudes of bird life, my mind is drawn towards the “anti-reasons” why I wouldn't choose to become a resident of the world, if I had a say in the matter.

There is nothing in the world that was originally made by humans. Man builds dwellings with soil and wood that's already on the Earth; he survives by drinking water which is provided free of charge by Nature; he eats food which Nature has given him a brain clever enough to cook first, or whose properties he alters with agricultural innovation – to suit his taste.

Nature also reveals unto humankind, the herbs and chemicals to be used in creating medicines to cure him when he's sick. But man perverts this knowledge and creates a chemistry of death with it.

Nature generously opens up ma's mind, so that he can manufacture rockets and instruments to fly him beyond the Earth's orbit, into the realms where galaxies and stars do dwell.

But with his other hand, man chooses to make deadly weapons with these skills.

Through this duplicity, man has become the most destructive force on Planet Earth!

Indeed, if left alone, he will turn the Earth into a cratered desert – like the Moon or Mars.

Take man into an enchanting tropical forest. Open his eyes to the coloured wings of different butterflies. Open his ears to the songs of nightingales and hornbills.

Let him drink the cool water that dribbles downhill and is constantly chilled by a canopy of greenish foliage.

Will he mark the place down as a potential paradise to which he should bring his lovers, offspring or friends? To praise Nature and gape in wonder?

No!

Man would rather go and bring ugly machines to destroy the brook and dig beneath it for bauxite or manganese or other ores.

He will drive excavators up and down the water to dredge up the white sand and crystal pebbles, turn them into dirty mud and pan them for – gold nuggets; gold dust! Artificial food that can neither be roasted nor cooked but apparently invaluable to man!

Oh man, what a fool!

Who created this humankind and placed it on a Planet Earth which he's unfit to make his habitation?

Who makes humankind seem to enjoy the act of – destroying, destroying; destroying?

Humankind has even been destroying the very atmosphere that protects him from the sun's deadly rays.

He's relentlessly creating climate change. The evidence is there, plotted into graphs by his own clever instruments!

Yet. he won't admit it! Nor take action to stop it!

He has buried nuclear weapons in underground bunkers. One accident and radiation will kill millions of his own kind.

He has established scientific institutions that can turn natural microbes into invisible killers with unbounded reproductive capability.

But when Ebola comes, followed swiftly by Coronavirus, he doesn't acknowledge his part in their creation. Instead, he misinforms the world with empty alibis. Excuses forged by forked tongues.

No! I would say to anyone who wanted to send me into the world: you may only do so, if you can take away my mind!

Don't make me capable of judging what's good and what's bad for the world.

Or else give me a stick – hard as steel and flexible as a rope – by which I may whip the fools amongst

humankind, till they learn the value of what it is they've got that they are so happily destroying!

Or else give me a thousand voices, by which I can chant, with the birds, on a daily basis:

Men-are-fools-men-are-fools-men-are-fools-men-are-fools!