Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Is it a curse to be sentient 

I think it is sometimes 

Sometimes I wish I was reduced  

To the thought process of a less intelligent animal 

Or one with less responsibilities  

Not saying that I have a lot of responsibilities 

But I just mean that I don’t want to have to think about  

Anything anymore 

I wish to be an animal going for a hunt 

Instead I’m thinking about studying 

And family and such 

When I could simply be stalking prey 

Maybe it’s not a curse and I am ungrateful  

Maybe I’d feel more pain, more confusion as a less mentally developed animal  

Maybe I would 

I have no way of knowing 

But it’s just so confusing  

All of it 

If this is what sentient and conscious and much too self-aware beings are supposed to constantly feel like 

Then I’m not sure if I want it 

Will I ever feel fulfilled in this body 

I can’t tell 

My mind is thirsty for the natural instinct’s guidance 

I wish I could live solely for killing and the search of sustenance  

For reproduction and the survival of my children 

I wish it was this simple 

But no 

I need to work and clean and study make friends fall in love get hurt once get hurt again and again and again all while I’m still working always working and I need to think and I need to remember and I need to keep thinking and I need to compare myself to others even if the traits I’m comparing are not essential to my survival and do not change our chances in natural selection I still need to compare just constantly comparing and always working and always thinking I am always thinking the drip never stops just thought after thought after thought after thought after thought after thought after 

Is it wrong 

To wish to be reduced to nothing but a single celled organism  

To have no thought process at all 

To be mindlessly living 

Why am I not allowed to simply exist 

Is it wrong to just be 

Why do I always have to do 

These sentences are merely the streams of consciousness of every ancestor that has come before me 

The curse of sentience has plagued every person to ever live 

Some 100 billion Homo sapiens throughout history 

All sharing this singular yet collective grievance 

A feeling you could not explain to your pet 

Or the spider hanging in the corner of your room 

This self ordained title that of the only “Intelligent Animal” 

Has left us all alone at the top of a worthless pedestal that only we know of 

I am an animal breaking into and out of myself all at once 

And if I was some single celled organism, wouldn’t I still have some form of intelligence 

I mean 

Do the genes know they’re part of a chromosome 

Do the cells know they’re part of a tissue 

Do the organs know they make up a body 

Does the body know it has a brain 

Does the brain know how to live 

My brain knows birthdays, names, people’s faces 

My brain remembers where my keys are, the place of every trinket in my room 

My brain can calculate the kinetic energy of an electron after being hit with a photon of a wavelength of 461 nanometers 

But my brain does not how to turn food into acid 

It doesn’t know how to turn oxygen to carbon dioxide 

It doesn’t know how to send an electric pulse through my nerves 

It doesn’t know how to walk and talk and move my fingers and toes 

These processes just happen, despite myself 

My brain does not know how to make my heart beat 

I mean I know where the blood goes 

Right atrium tricuspid valve right ventricle pulmonary semilunar valve pulmonary trunk lung capillaries pulmonary veins left atrium bicuspid valve left ventricle aortic semilunar valve aorta 

I mean come on we learned this in biology 

But these are just words 

They mean nothing to the body 

All the body knows is the rhythmic rush of blood, to and fro, up and down 

The body knows of contractions and dilations, pink and bright red tissues, the colours so vivid that for a moment, just a second, you’d think you were biting into a beautiful ripe pomegranate rather than flesh 

The body knows without knowing 

A brain doesn’t know how to live 

A decapitated chicken keeps walking  

Its body survives no longer bound by consciousness 

The mind is only a few hundred thousand years old 

The body is forever 

Photo by and machines on Unsplash