The Purpose of Life

As a species we have one function and one function only: We make shit. It is what we are designed for, and we are very, very good at it. Other species make shit as well, of course. Beavers make dams. Bird make nests. Bunnies make more bunnies. But we’ve got them all beat. We got thumbs. Thumbs allow us to make shit on scale. Like skyscrapers. Ants can make towering anthills. Good for them. They can’t make skyscrapers. Know why? No thumbs. We don’t have fins or wings – but we make boats and airplanes. Why? Thumbs. Printing presses and washing machines and electric guitars and the internet. Thumbs, thumbs, thumbs.

Oh, and brains. Forgot to mention them. We got brains to spare. Hello again, it’s me, Pinky Tourette, resident brain and bearer of twin thumbs. Brains allow us to design and manufacture cell phones. Thumbs allow us to type stupid texts on them and embarrass ourselves on a scale unheard of just a single generation ago. How’s that for a double whammy? Brains and thumbs. Analytical and physical skills combined, allowing us to make so much shit we should be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the species that makes the most shit. Maybe we already are. I dunno. I never actually read the Guiness Book of World Records.

The point is, we created industry to make shit more effectively and on a grander scale. We invented technology to make shit more complicated and extend into cyber-realms beyond the material. We developed misinformation to confuse matters and to further the need for more shit.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with my topic today. Please do not read the preceding three paragraphs. Instead let’s start over at sentence one. As a species we have one function: to make shit.

I feel here the need to point out that I mean this in a literal sense. And since nobody seems to know what “literal” means anymore, I’ll defer to dictionary.com: “in the…strict sense…word for word…without exaggeration or inaccuracy.”

So, once again: As a species we have one function: to make shit. Yes, literally. Think about it. We take a perfectly good carrot, ingest it, and what becomes of that carrot? It turns to shit. Same thing with an apple or a piece of cake. A nice little flounder named Jacob. A cow, a pig, a plate of spaghetti, a Caesar salad. In they go to our mouth-hole… tick tock tick… out comes shit.

We make shit. We are, all of us, food processors. The elemental kind. Hyper-efficient biological harvesters. We process food and turn it… to shit.

We’re stunningly efficient at turning things to shit. All kinds of things. Raw or cooked, simple or elaborate, naked or slathered in Cholula sauce. Insert between jaws, chomp chomp, presto: shit. We spend hours and ages preparing and finessing meals to fine form, to exquisite presentation and a delicate combination of scents and flavors… only to turn them to shit.

Contestants on reality shows race around competing to render the most elaborate items, stressing and struggling to make them look like some other object entirely – a phone, a shoe, a cocker spaniel – with the ultimate goal that they will become, you guessed it, shit.

It used to be that we had cooks. Now we have chefs. Celebrity chefs at that. Culinary schools have popped up like like pimples, with delinquent high school kids envisioning careers as a multimillionaire TV personality bossing other people around the kitchen.

And for what? For shit, that’s what. We continue as a species to develop and refine our ability to make shit. It is our duty. It is our goal. It is our essential function, our critical obligation, our biological imperative. It is nothing less than a divine decree. What, you ask, is the purpose of life? Simple, people. We are all infinite variations of the same sophisticated and fabulously intricate factory model, flawlessly designed for one express purpose: to make shit. Oh, and to replicate ourselves. Forgot about that one. Our other biological imperative. Why? You guessed it: So we can keep on making shit. Endlessly, eternally.

Now please excuse me. I’ll be back in a couple. Meanwhile, just a thought, you might want to crack a window.