The meaning of life

You go to your GP for a routine check-up and following the usual indignities of blood tests, urine samples and rubber-gloved probings she advises that you go for a few 'extra tests' with a specialist. 

Although you agree, you are a little nervous about the tests. "Why did my GP recommend extra tests?" you ask a friend over lunch some time later. She shrugs. "Probably nothing to worry about. They've got to justify all that expensive equipment."

Some weeks later you attend a military-style clinic made largely of concrete on the outskirts of town. You forget what tests you had as there are so many, but what you cannot forget is the MRI scan, mainly because of the claustrophobia induced by lying in what feels like a coffin for 40 minutes listening to deconstructed Dubstep. Although he is in attendance, you never get to meet the specialist, just a range of distracted functionaries in ill-fitting lab coats who usher you from one room to another.

Thirteen days later you receive a letter requesting that you return to the clinic to obtain your results in person. 

After some time waiting in a bare-walled waiting room which makes you think of something George Orwell might have imagined. You are taken down a flickering corridor to an office which shares the same Orwellian anti-decor.

The specialist smiles as you walk into the consulting room and greets you, but doesn't shake your hand. "Thank you for coming" he says and walks over to a large computer screen affixed to the wall, displaying what is presumably the visual result of all those hums, buzzes and beeps made by the scanner.

"Do you see those structures?" The specialist points to two areas on the screen with an almost artistic flourish. You peer at the image, it is not particularly easy to make anything out clearly but you comply: "yes, I suppose so". "Well those structures have been created by a parasite." Your mouth suddenly becomes very dry which you hear in the hoarse way you repeat his word: "Structures?" How can such an innocuous word induce such fear? Like the word 'lump'; so friendly almost comical when used in everyday contexts: "would you like one lump or two?"; yet sounding so terrifyingly terminal when used in a medical context: "I'm afraid we've found a lump". 

He waves his hand over more blurred shapes. "These structures, these tubes and these masses here, have been created in your body, indeed out of your body by the parasite." 

"Why?" you ask, you need to sit down but feel compelled to scrutinise the shapes as instructed which are now coalescing into something more solid, more tangiable than before. 

"Well, like every parasite, it needs a comfortable home where it can live and..."

His voice trails off.

"And what?" You ask.

"Go about its business, I suppose. Whatever that might entail."

"And, of course, so it can make good its exit." He continues. "A parasite is one of life's drifters; to stay in the same place for too long means certain death. It needs to always move on, in one form or another."

"You see to any parasite its host, which in this case is unfortunately you, is merely temporary accommodation, somewhere stay until it, or at least its offspring, are ready to move on, to pastures new, as it were. And this." He again points again to one of the tubular 'structures' "represents its exit strategy."

The thought that you might just be temporary accommodation, something to be used up and left behind, makes you feel sick.

"Is there anything you can do?" You ask. You're shaking, but you don't notice this.

"What do you mean?" His reply irritates you despite everything. "What do you think I mean?" You think to yourself. But in the last few minutes you've metamorphosed from agent to patient and feel impotent; at the mercy of the medical profession as represented by all-this-too-jovial harbinger of your own personal doom. This is a time for pleading rather than confrontation.

"Well, can you remove it?"

"Remove it?" He pauses. "Well, we could remove the parts I've just pointed out. But unfortunately the infestation is -- to a greater or lesser extent -- total. If we were to remove all of the parasite's handiwork, there would be precious little of you left."

---

And he's right. All of us have parts of our bodies that, to a greater or lesser extent, have nothing to do with our own personal interests (whatever that means). The clearest examples are our sexual or secondary sexual organs: penises, vaginas, ovaries and associated plumbing. And of course breasts. The specialist might have compounded the nightmare by saying (to women) that they have to feed the devil's child as well -- and that they will do so willingly (again, to a greater or lesser extent).

The alien parasite is not alien at all. It, or rather they, were here on earth before us, they are called genes. And to call them parasites makes no more sense than it would for a car to grumble about its parasitic driver.

I used the phrase 'our interests' and it is worth reflecting on what these might be. In our minds let us draw a Venn diagram of all relevant interests. We draw first the interests of the genes as a circle. Then we draw 'our interests'. Many of these overlap. For example, both our genes and us want to survive and reproduce. But given that genes have been responsible for our psychological make up (to a greater or lesser...) are we really justified in snatching that out of their hands and making a claim for it? There are certainly motivations that we might have that seem directly at odds with theirs. For example, if we decide not to have children, become celibate, sterilise ourselves or decide to kill ourselves (or our children), then that surely is evidence of us speaking up for ourselves? Of saying "damn you, I'm doing this for me!"

Maybe.

Then there is another even more (using this line of thinking) curious circle in our Venn diagram which represents the interests of others. Many people do things for other people. Our children, of course (but that is just an extension of our genes's interests) but also, in some cultures, our parents, leaders, friends, romantic partners and so on and so forth. True autonomy is difficult to find, it may even be an illusion.

To the ancients we were, gods excepted, masters of the universe positioned at its centre with everything being there for us. Now, we aren't even the centres of our own bodies. I would say that even our psychology rebels against us, if that didn't raise the word 'us' up to a position as exalted as dirt.

It is time to grow up.