In what was an intriguing chat with the son last evening, we poked around the ethics of genetic modification. Apparently, that had been an area of discussion in their classroom, and the son was keen – the novelty of a discussion with multiple viewpoints at that age is amazing. I smiled and listened to him talk offering a question here, a hum there, an insight elsewhere.
“What do you want to do with human-beings if we are smarter?” I asked him.
“We could fly.”
“Cool! But then what?”
I took a deep breath and said as casually as I could. “Everyone wants to be smarter, for things to come more easily to them. So we wouldn’t have to spend so much time figuring things out. But – the thing is, if everything came easily, we would not know what to do with all the time we have on our hands. What do they say? An empty mind is a devil’s workshop? I don’t know – I think it could lead to more mental health issues – what do you think?”
He pondered this for a while, and said it was an intriguing thought.
Who Survives?
It reminded me of another chat the husband and I had a few months ago – on the larger theme of the future of humanity. With smarter, faster, stronger, what would happen to humans? The husband took a moment to gather his thoughts, and said, “Well – it will come back to good old basics then, wouldn’t it? Survival of the fittest. Those humans who can learn to be peaceful with themselves will ultimately win out – that is the strain that will survive.”
I was impressed – yes, no matter what we had, it ultimately came down to temperament, attitude, and the ability to be happy, didn’t it?
Generosity by Richard Powers: The Happiness Gene
Incidentally the book I am currently reading: Generosity by Richard Powers, talks about a variation of this: The Happiness Gene.
The story tries to figure out the reason for Thassa’s happiness. Thassadit Amswar is a refugee who has fled the Algiers region. Her brother is still under house arrest in a totalitarian regime, her parents are dead after years in which they were stuck in the midst of a civil war that raged around them, and any which way you look at it, she should be morose, sad – not chirpy, cheerful, and full of light.
The whole set up reminded me of one of Rumi’s sayings that have been making its way around the instagram world: something to the effect of:
When the world around you is dark, you could very well be the light.
Rumi
In any case, somehow Thassa’s ability to be happy attracts attention – first from local friends, then a policeman, a local news report diagnoses her as having ‘Hyperthymia’ – a condition of overwhelming happiness, and goes on to attract those who want to auction and buy her eggs, decode her DNA, figure out the happiness gene. She finds herself unmoored by how people feel bad because she is happy, and having to navigate the horrors of fame.
In Essence
- Is there a genetic component to being happy?
- If so, can that be picked and chosen for our offspring in the not-so-distant future?
- What issues would that create for mankind? For just as sure as we are of creating solutions, so too can we be sure for creating problems for ourselves, isn’t it?
Nourish-n-Cherish 