It
is not quite an overstatement to say that human nature has often been
sanctified as holy and benign in many works of spiritual literature and
holy books; and it is usually depicted as distinct from the lesser
animal heritage. The Christian myth likes to celebrate the dawn of
human birth as divine occurrence, set to work by the Lord’s urge to
create. And we are, thus, created in His image as perfect gestalt, not
one ounce of improvement can be added. Confucius and Mencius believed
that human nature is basically good. The allegorical water’s tendency
to flow downward etched deep memories in every Chinese’s collective
consciousness. The modern Cartesian notion of the west, on the other
hand, works on the assumption that humans are rational beings, capable
of cool-headed, unbiased calculation. However, hard-wired in the human
brain, lying deeply, and enveloped within layers of outer cortices, is
the reptilian part of our human inheritance. Homo sapiens have evolved,
it seems, not out of primordial, innocent angels, but out of their
primal animal ancestry.
Thailand
is a country blessed with tropical milieu. And since places with
tropical climate are typically endowed with myriad of natural
sceneries, produces and wild lives are abundant in this country.
Durians, bananas, watermelons, monkeys, elephants are tourists’
everyday encounter. One of the traveling sites of my tour of this
exotic Indo-China land was a visit to the crocodile swamp. The swamp is
a place where tourists can pair into a group of 5 to 6 in a boat,
forming a croc-fishing expedition. And as a city-slicker from
sub-tropical island of Taiwan, I eagerly jumped in the croc-fishing
boat, attempted to safely enjoy being a day of Mr. Crocodile in the
wild.
We
hooked pieces of chicken meat on the tip of a wooden pole, very much
like one would hook a little worm on a fishing pole. We dangled the
meat in front of the hungry crocodiles as the boat cruised lazily under
the sizzling sun. No sooner had the crocs seen the blood-dripping meat
descended down the pole than piles of them began to swim wantonly in
pursuit of the bait, one on top of the other, chasing ceaselessly after
the sanguine flesh.
The
long, huge, Paleolithic mouths were filled with sharp diamond-shaped
teeth. The thrust of their jaws could easily tear any unattended limbs
into pieces. It was without a doubt a quick and easy way to make human
sloppy joe. I will never forget the images of how when the hungry,
cold-blooded reptiles spotted their potential lunch candidates and
crawled sinisterly into the bait from all sides, forming a radial
contour. The ruthless gaze in their eyes while they chased after their
preys made me recall the predatory nature in ourselves.
On
the last day of our tour, we were taken to a famous gem manufacturing
factory in the outer reach of Bangkok. Calling it a factory is grossly
misleading. Even though there were some manufacturing activities going
on there, they were merely a showcase for its more elaborate
attempt-soliciting gem accessories.
Right
before the bus was brought to a halt in the factory, our overzealous
tour guide presented us a thorough introduction of all different kinds
of gem stones. The differences in color bestow unique functions in each
stone. For example, a blue stone represents career prospect, a yellow
stone generates wealth, and a red stone congregates health.
As
soon as the introduction ended, the bus was parked neatly at the front
of the establishment. We were then taken into the factory in an
assembly line fashion. A brief film of the gem manufacturing process
was shown to us. And a three- minute bathroom break was thrust upon us
as if we were going to be in a long battle. We were then hauled into a
showcase room full of sales reps. The superfluous number of the reps
can hardly merit more exaggeration. The ratio of reps to customers was
close to 1 to 1. Under no normal circumstance does this excess lineup
seem necessary.
We
were quick to find out that this so-called gem tour was nothing but a
plot between the factory owner and tour companies. The exact breakdown
of the profit-sharing scheme between the factory and the tour companies
escaped our knowledge, but I would bet it was not too shabby, as it
wasn’t hard to observe the sparing of no effort on the part of the
guides in orchestrating the solicitation with the reps.
The
general facial features of the reps seemed bloodthirsty. They seemed to
know exactly who the weaklings were in defending their sovereignty of
wallets and wasted no time in biting off big chunk of their credit
lines. And the way the predators calculatingly tagged along the
potential preys reminded me of our distant ancestor-the crocs in the
swamp.
Human
beings are a strange creature of “non-end” product. Our evolution
likens to that of the geological stratification-layers upon layers of
ever-renewing, evolutionary novelties. Our moral behaviors are but a
newcomer in human history. They are merely footnotes on the universe’s
long and antique chronology. However, contrary to this view, we tend to
freeze a particular moment of development and embody such development
as thing-in-itself. After all, it was not too long ago that the Church
declared the earth to be the center of the universe, since that was the
way the world looked like to a medieval mind. So the next time you see
your human brother commits a sin, please have mercy on him, for he does
not know what he is doing-it is the croc in the swamp.
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