Tanzania - Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

I’m not one to celebrate birthdays, especially as I get older but I overheard on the national news yesterday that Wednesday, February 12th, is Charles Darwin’s birthday. We all know Darwin and let’s thank him on his special day for helping spur the debate of evolution versus creation which rages on to this day. Thank you Charlie (wink wink!). For those of you who know me well you know I have a propensity to learn towards the theory of evolution. To me, it makes absolute sense and when you consider the common thread that is shared through all of human life (despite race, color, creed, religion, joys and struggles), the amazing diversity and complexity of animal and plant life, the concept of how the continents shifted, how man and woman evolved from apes out of the middle of Africa based on archeological findings; it just all makes terrible sense to me. However, I admit I struggled with science in high school and college bigtime so, don’t consider me an expert.

Past the Serengeti in East Tanzania in to the Great Rift Valley lies the Olduvai Gorge, or more commonly referred to as 'The Cradle of Mankind.' Here lies one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and is instrumental in understanding the theory of human evolution as well. Fossil remains of human beings, their families, footprints and artifacts were found here dating back more than 2.5 million years ago. It is incredibly dry and arid there, the wind sweeps up so swift and powerfully from the gorge you can barely keep your hat on. Overlooking the gorge from up top there was dead silence except for the whistling the wind made as it passed up and across the dusty plateau. It was a slightly eerie feeling, not in a bad way, but deeply mysterious. To stand there and imagine what life must have been like for our very earliest ancestors: how did they walk? Where did they find food, water or shelter? Why here in this barren landscape and why not leave? Leave they did. And here we are.

I just don’t have the answers. I don’t know and I'm pretty A-OK without knowing. There are times when I delve deep down inside and ponder the truly big questions in life; how did we get here? why are we here? more so why the Hell am I here? what happens after we die? And when it all gets too much I head out shopping and maybe pick up a handbag, or enjoy a couple glasses of Shiraz wine with a girlfriend or the best remedy of all, I watch endless reruns of Larry David’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’

Most of you will know Larry David as the co-producer (i.e.: comic genius) behind Seinfeld and if you don’t know Seinfeld then, according to Charles Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest theory, you might not be the crunchiest carrot in the bunch. Hopefully your genes will not propagate into the future. Larry has covered every facet of the human struggle: irony, perversity, shame, isolation, idiocy, nothingness, hypocrisy, curiosity, apathy. So, if laughter is the path to redemption then through the grace of Larry, I think I might be saved.

Again, standing there on top of the gorge I laid eyes on three little boys playing and dashing down the valley, hiding behind huge rocks, pouncing down the gritty, dusty, dirt barely escaping a tumbling fall all the way down. They wore the traditional Maasai brightly colored red and/or purple robes and no shoes for them (how brave!). They were laughing out loud, having a terrible amount of fun as they chased after each other and soon they disappeared into the valley somewhere out of my eyesight. Really, I sure don’t have answers although I do have opinions and regardless of where you stand on the issue of evolution versus creation I’d say that laughter is a blessing.