Better to Throw

That night before I dropped off to sleep, I started thinking about ants again. Some people count sheep. I think of shrinking men, gorillas, grizzly bears, baseball, hockey games or ants.

I was thinking how ants can lift some ridiculous amount of weight over their heads, I don’t know exactly what that amount is but I think it’s something like one hundred times their own weight. Too bad, we can’t do that. Think of all the money we could save if instead of driving our cars, we carried them from place to place. We could go shopping, load our groceries into the car and carry the car and the groceries back to the farm.

Most humans can not lift their own weight over their heads. That’s why we invented the sport of weight lifting, so we could watch gigantic men act like tiny ants. The question is, are ants super strong or are men super weak when it comes to lifting. We like to flatter ourselves and think that the ants are the freaks. I’m beginning to think the ants aren’t freaks. Ants are normal. We’re the weakling freaks when it comes to the strength of lifting.

See, we’ve got our biceps located too near our elbows. We don’t get an efficient fulcrum effect when we try to lift our cars or our couches. Our fulcrums are calibrated to lift cans of beer.

I don’t think that ants have either elbows or biceps. I also don’t know whether or not fish have asses but that’s another point of meditation for another sleepless night before walking into another class that I don’t want to attend.

So if we’re at a structural, evolutionary disadvantage when it comes to lifting, why has our species survived. Why aren’t we being trampled by giant ants carrying moutain ranges? The answer is that it’s more important to throw than it is to lift. I’ve watched a lot of ants trudging around but I’ve never seen one ant throw anything else to another ant.( Hey Al, go deep for this two thousand pound cookie crumb)

When we humanoids were first starting as an organized species, somebody in each tribe had to pick up the knack of throwing. We were built for throwing. Throwing was an efficient way of hunting and defending the tribe against being hunted. Throwing changed our step on the food chain. Throwing is more important than lifting.

We started with stones.

Then we moved to sticks.

Then we sharpened the sticks.

We kept on throwing sticks and stones. We kept on breaking bones.

We keep on keepin’ on.

We forgot about carrying our cars. We discovered oil. We’ll do anything to get our hands on oil. Our stikcs are a lot more pointed and we have invented even better ways throw them.

Today, some of the descendants of the ancient throwers survive and thrive. Why wouldn’t they? Throwers have always been able to provide and protect their families better than lifters. Throwers get the chicks. Lifters protect the throwers when they’re not collecting the garbage.

Today, the throwers are called pitchers. They are called quarterbacks. They can throw a ball ninety miles an hour. They get big bucks. They don’t have to lift a lot of weight.They don’t have to go to classes at a crappy college to pass the day. They’re not ants. They’re the people. They need sleep. They gotta stop itchng and rolling around if they’re going to hold off the ants and the grizzlies. They gotta fall asleep. They got work to do tomorrow. They got to remember the Greek alphabet. alpha, beta, delta….phi…chi ……..sigh

and

out.