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  • Writer's pictureMartyn Offord

November 29th On Becoming Mutants.

“Dog bites man,” “Man bites dog.” This is a common example to show how word order can determine meaning. Doing on-line Yoga this morning my wandering mind, which is not ideally suited to Yoga, kept thinking: “We are living our lives virtually,” “We are virtually living our lives.” (a frontal adverb as I recall from doing zoom homework with Mollie) There was something very worrying about the latter following from the former. The former suggests that our lives are becoming not quite real and lived at a remove; the latter suggests that our lives are just falling short of being properly lived. I am wondering if we as a species are putting on a rapid evolutionary spurt in that our default position seems to be doing virtual exercise, watching virtual concerts and plays, playing virtual games and communicating virtually. None of which I find entirely satisfying but I’m sadly accepting that virtual living is as good as it is going to get.


And in accordance with theories of evolution those of us who are most adept at these media will come through most unscathed, most fit to procreate. Only those who can do it virtually will breed. If Darwinian Theory applies the species will mutate into one that is uncomfortable in face to face conversation, too self-conscious to join in a song or worried about people smelling us in a live Zumba session. With Zoom we’ve been able to be coy, secretive, trouserless, inarticulate, unwashed and tuneless without anyone noticing. The full frontal will be an awful shock when we find our whole selves on show again. How will we cope with public showers, saunas, quizzes without googling below the screen and choirs without mute?


Before David Walliams and before Adrian Mole, there was Nigel Molesworth, ‘Down with Skool’ by Geoffrey Williams and Ronald Searle. I remember Molesworth speculating that too much study will lead to our brains developing so much that we will lose our legs, as we once lost our tails when we didn’t need them anymore for swinging around in the trees. Searle drew a sketch of someone looking like an egg with a school cap and tiny feet. In a Ted Talk some years ago a leading educationalist said if our curricula continue to focus so much on ‘academic’ subjects, we will become so cerebral that the only use for our legs will be to get us to conferences and meetings. Maybe that’s why Michael Gove is so often filmed out jogging. ‘Down with Skool’ was published in 1953 when it was the effect of car ownership on our evolutionary prospects that interested the audience – not even TV or comprehensive education. I remember the concern that we would all evolve ‘square eyes’ if we watched too much TV. 70 years after Molesworth the only use for our post Covid legs might be to walk us around the house looking for our Ipad . Nigel Molesworth in the cartoon seems to be ready to enter Tier 3.



One useful state we might be evolving is the ability to go into suspended animation – to float through the day without reflecting upon disappointment, loss, worry, boredom. We would lower our vascular rates and dig down into the slime like a frog at the bottom of the pond. I just hope that like the frog we will be able to liven up in the spring and get on with the spawning, or whatever is at the top of our priority list.


One dimension of our current evolutionary dilemma is if there is no one to admire us or share the joke, will we be wearing our Christmas sweaters purely for our own admiration. Mine of King Penguins won a competition and received a standing ovation at a public gathering last year. This year will I put it on and grin enthusiastically at my reflection in a mirror because I don’t have a real audience? What is really worrying is if grinning inanely at my image in the mirror comes to feel normal and go on to be the consummation of my narcissism. What about if I have evolved the capacity to be entirely satisfied with my own solitary appreciation of my King Penguin sweater and no longer need a standing ovation at a packed concert venue in Belper?

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