How to Orient an Organism
How to Orient an Organism Understanding Depression, Collapse, and Triumph J. Daniel Sawyer Emerging from primordial musical chaos, light dawns on a new Earth, and we see the title card The Dawn of Man . A tableaux unfolds in which semi-erect apes get attacked by leopards, hunt with their bare hands, and fight wars over access to water, before inspiration strikes—perhaps sent by the gods—and one curious ape makes a connection between the way a discarded bone knocks other discarded bones around, and the usefulness of that bone as a weapon. Smashing the bones around him, the ape works himself into a state of triumphant, orgiastic glee. He takes the bone and uses it to defeat the rival tribe, hunt game, and rule his small corner of the world until, in a celebration of triumph, he throws the bone up into the air, where a quick scene change lands us in orbit above the Earth, traveling alongside spacecraft, space stations, and weapons satellites. The first tool in the conquest of ...