The Wizard!

Stirring the DNA Broth

Stirring the DNA Broth

©2019, Olan L. Smith

"Hey Wizard, what are you doing?" he asks as he peers behind the curtain.

"Hi, Olan, it's the same oh, same oh, just brewing a DNA stew. You want to help?"

"Sure!"

"Well, stand here, not too close to the flame, and use a firm hand. Make sure to stir it steadily, and mix it up. Guide the edge of the spoon so it scrapes all the sides of the bowl, top to bottom. If you stir it up too much, you'll have the DNA soup foaming, and then spilling on the floor; I've done that a couple of times, and you should have seen the creatures that came out of it, but the duck-billed platypus is just one of them. Watch, see the bubbles, each time you see one emerge and then pop; that is an entire species emerging and then waning. Time has no meaning here in the kitchen."

"Why do you have linear time, if life is going to be so short? I know I'd rather live forever."

"A life's lifetime is time lived, short or long, and it is the perspective that counts, and besides the DNA is forever. I'm still here brewing, stirring, making sure it doesn't burn up or spill over. It is the DNA that is living for eternity; individual emanations from the brew don't matter; it is the stew that must live. Look around you, see all the pots I have brewing, all different forms of DNA, all needing my care as the master chef. It is not you who matters; it is the DNA. DNA is life. Put that pot on simmer and come with me. I want you to see something."

The wizard moves him to a theater like room. The wizard dims the lights, and the action starts. In front of him we see a ball of ooze floating, changing, from eggs to fish, to dinosaurs, to birds, to mammals, to humans, and then it stops, as though frozen in place. "That, my son, is where we are with your brew, all emanating from one egg to you! And it all seems to happen in a flash, pretty smooth. Eh? I think so. Sure, there were a few bumpy patches if you slowed down the action to your level of time, but at my speed, it was near perfection. Humans get too worried about minutia. You can't see the big picture, because you're not gods with a big 'G,' you just think you know it all. Even though I'm made from a god with a bigger 'G' and so on up the ladder; ...you get the picture."

"See, you're saying we all have creators up to the big GOD who creates it all?"

"Well, not entirely. We only know our part of the process, and we speculate on the bigger picture. You can't comprehend me, I can't comprehend my creator. For all I know, everything is like that room we were just in, a theater, a play, an act in a play. Perhaps we are just illusions of a great Wizard somewhere in something. You can't know everything. Perhaps, I gave humans too much thinking power, or I should have just kept them so busy, that they didn't have time to reflect. Go along now. I've got stews to brew. Shoo!"