I have either been put together over the millennia through countless trials and errors, mistakes and opportunities or I have been created at the hand of some intelligent designer. I have either navigated a successful evolutionary path to arrive where I am today ever since I slid out of the primordial ooze or what I am now was destined to be ever since some divine being held me in their dreams and produced me in their image.
And now as I am sitting alone in the darkest hours of the night with my laptop open, tapping away at the keys I am wondering which one I am. I am wondering whether I am evolved or designed because I am suffering from toothache. Not the kind of dull pain that lets you know that you still have teeth but the stabbing pain that feels like a nail being driven into your jaw, an agonising pain that comes to you in the night when you’re resistance is low and the only thing that you can feel is pain.
It is dark. It is cold and I have no frame of reference other than the searing pain in my jaw. I’ve lain in bed for over an hour before eventually getting up in search of analgesics and now I’m sitting downstairs waiting for the pain to dissipate.
And I’m wondering why would a design involve such pain? What is its purpose? I get it. I understand that I have a problem with my tooth. I have an abscess, a painful bacterial infection festering away at the root of one of my molars on the lower west side but I don’t need to be reminded of it every second.
If I was designed would I not have had more than two sets of teeth? I should be able to replace then when they wear out like the tyres on my car, or pop them out and clean them whenever they get in a mess like the trap in the sink. I should be able to inject some cleaning fluid into the pre-drilled channels to flush out the offending invaders or a warning light should have appeared in my eyes to let me know that some work is needed.
But I can’t. Instead I am sitting in the kitchen while a battle rages in my jaw. I am reminded that life is a battle where the lucky and the agile survive. Nature isn’t in harmony but in a constant tension between the eater and the eaten. Life is an arms race where every opportunity is taken and which at the moment I feel I am losing.
I am fighting with pain-killers and antibiotics and when I get a moment’s reprieve I will make my way back to bed.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 