The Monkey in our Veins

I saw something last night that shook me to the very bone. I have heard of this phenomenon before, but never did I think that it would have such a profound effect on me.

Blue Planet – Forest dwellers of which the chimpanzee is featured. We came to know chimpanzees as those cute and cuddly little ‘monkeys’ with hearts of gold. Not the ones I saw on Blue Planet though. This particular program captured the dark side of this intelligent primate. A certain group under the leadership of the alpha male, will stake out another chimpanzee’s territory, and literally plan an attack. When the time is right, they strike, invoking fear in the other group by surprise, making noise (by even stomping on tree roots), and then, the heart of darkness descends as they will kill a fellow species member, and share its flesh to eat. This will happen in spite of their own territory being filled with a lush feast of food.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? One group of humans (let’s call it a country), especially those who have much more than the others, will always find some excuse to invade another fellow human’s territory in the name of --------- (fill in what you like), to have more. More, more, more. The desire for more always intoxicates the primate mind, driving it to madness; madness that blinds the human heart to see the fear on innocent women and children’s faces as they strike at the heart of the ‘enemy’.

I can see where we come from. We do after all share about 96% of the genetic make up of our chimp cousins. We might wear designer suits, drive in snazzy cars and create a virtual private space in an overcrowded world with our MP3 players – but until we realize that there is more to the human condition than just shopping, TV and Playstation, we will always just be ‘monkeys’ with suits in supermarkets.

Humans have something different – an element yet undiscovered by most of the ones deluded into thinking they are fully awake while they shop till they drop. Humans have the ability to, not just dream, but to tell others in Technicolor detail about this dream. We have this weird thing where we believe in a world beyond the veil of normal consciousness. A world filled with supernatural beings, both benign and malicious. Some will say that they don’t believe in superstitious nonsense, but still, they will wake up at night in a cold sweat, returning from that dream world so little understood by modern man.

There is something that dwells in the human ape. Something that stares through that ‘monkey’ eyes. Something that cannot be seen, or heard, but felt when very, very quiet. It is this ‘something’ that needs to be awakened before the human can turn into something more than just a monkey in a suit…(to be continued).