Are you the First Member of a New Species?

There have been many blogs of late on the theme ‘there's a bright side to being different'. The most extreme form of this, of course, is if you are not merely different but the first member of a whole new species. This may sound 'out there' but it has happened jillions of times on this planet that an organism's DNA mutated, and the organism was not the same species as either of its parents, nor anyone in the neighborhood, nor for that matter anything that ever lived before. It may be happening right now in some lineage somewhere, and it's bound to happen again in our lineage, if not as a result of Mother Nature's handiwork, as a result of our own tinkering.

So if you think you're different, you may want to investigate the slim but intriguing possibility that you're the first member of a new species. You investigate it by seeing if you can mate with humans. If you're genuinely the first member of a new species, you won't be able to successfully produce offspring with another human. (Try to conduct your investigation in such a way as to avoid bringing unwanted children into the world, taking into account the concerns raised in my first blog, Un-family-ar values.)

Being different presents hardships, as many PT bloggers have noted, but the hardships encountered by people who are ‘merely different' pale in comparison with the hardships encountered by someone who is the first member of a new species. This is particularly true if you want your new species to proliferate, which given how organisms are wired, will likely be the case. You have already conquered the odds of being the first member of this new species, but there are more odds to conquer if you want your race to live on and prosper. There has to exist, at this very point in time, another person who has the same genetic mutation as you, and is thus a member of this same new species, and this person has to happen to be the opposite sex to you, and you have to find each other, and you have to want to mate with each other!

So, as someone who studies creativity in both the biological and cultural realms, I've taken it upon myself to offer the following free and confidential service: I will act as the official contact person for individuals who suspect they may be the first member of a new species. I may not be in exactly the same boat as you but I think you will find that I can relate to and sympathize with your situation. In return I hope to meet some interesting 'people' (or whatever you prefer to be called). Of course, if I find you attractive, I may have to, in the name of science, verify for myself whether you fulfill the above-mentioned condition for possible new species-hood. If you qualify, I will look through my database of others who suspect that they too are members of a new species, and match you up. The rest is up to you, but before you and your new race do anything drastic, don't forget I saved you from extinction.

Addendum

The above was written out as it came to me in a dream the night before (May 29th). It doesn't exactly depict how things work in the biological realm, but it made for such a haunting image, this unfortunate being wandering the world looking for someone with the same weird mutation. The dream seemed to throw being different in perspective and give it a less serious, almost humorous slant. As the 'creativity professor', I get a stream of people -- not just students but professors and people who have nothing to do with the university -- knocking on my door lamenting that they are different. I can related; I spent decades on this planet before I could even begin to make myself understood. There's a lot of people who feel as if they were constructed for another universe and at the last minute, as a kind of cruel joke, Mother Nature dropped us in this one.

So even if the dream is not factually true, I think it may have captured something that a lot of people resonate with. And even if I'm not really offering the above-mentioned service, I do want reach out to such people, make them see they're not alone, and help them actualize their potential.