A Boon and a Bane

My high school friend and I had a great relationship with similar interests in biology. Because we lived on opposite ends of the school district, we didn’t hang out much outside of school, but we did spend the occasional summer weekend at each other’s house—given we could convince a parent to make the drive. We botched many an experiment during that time together.

We graduated with honors and were co-valedictorians of our class. We were both influenced by our parents to pursue a medical degree with the goal of becoming surgeons. As you may have guessed, we agreed to attend the same post-secondary institution and were roommates and spent numerous hours studying together and conducting the same research.

During that time together, we were exposed to a wide array of biological studies, but we both seemed to gravitate toward evolution. We eventually came to the realization that becoming a surgeon wasn’t our destiny, much to the dismay of our parents. We also knew that we were ahead of everyone else in our class. We rarely missed a test question and found other students migrating to us as mentors, which became a nuisance, but we always carved out a couple of hours each week for them.

Although we both had religious backgrounds and had never discussed it with each other, we began to find ourselves discussing the highly sensitive area of religion vs. science and the origin of man. It was taboo leading up to that point, but we kept those conversations between us and as a solemn oath.

In the end, we both received our bachelor’s degrees in microbiology and again shared the honor of co-valedictorian. We had no problem being accepted at the next level and jointly pursued a PhD at a world-renowned institution in Evolutionary Biology. While our parents were not keen on the change of direction, they agreed to continue funding our studies—money meant nothing to them.

We spent the following summer apart. I stayed with my parents in Vermont because they’d purchased a summer home—and a winter home in Arizona for that matter. My roommate’s parents had retired and moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So, he spent the entire summer there. We spoke a couple times on the phone just to keep up with each other and building on our excitement for the fall semester.

When fall semester finally arrived, Shawn and I met up at our new apartment, ordered several pizzas, and spent the next twenty-four hours setting up and arranging everything. Our sleep schedules were never normal, and it seemed that would never change, as we spent the entire night converting two of the apartment walls into whiteboards, which led to intermittent discussions about the types of evolution (e.g., adaptive, convergent, divergent, and coevolution) and how they may impact our path forward. We knew that we’d be studying all of them, but it didn’t hurt to have meaningful discussions about each.

While we made some friends and occasionally went out with them, we really stayed to ourselves besides participating in the class experiments on campus. All but one person in our area of study could compete with us, but he lacked confidence. We knew it and he knew it.

As the first year came to a close, we adopted that third person into our group. His name was Palo. Through the year, the three of us had become more interested in the extinction of species. We had learned a great deal in that first year and it was all very exciting, but something was missing. I realized it, but I wasn’t sure they did.

The three of us stayed for the summer and continued down the path of extinction. At that point however, I couldn’t define what extinction really meant to me. Was it enough for me? I felt like I needed more and then one night it happened. The three of us were sitting in the apartment staring silently at the whiteboards when I blurted out, “Nothing is working for me. I can’t see anything…like nothing is changing.”

Palo rebutted, “Everything is changing.”

Shawn chimed in, “What?”

Palo repeated, “Everything is changing, we know it’s changing. Sometimes it doesn’t happen fast enough though.”

I shouted, “That’s it, it’s so simple.”

Shawn chimed in again, “What?”

Palo held up his hands as if to agree with Shawn.

“In order to see it clearly we need to speed it up.”

“Speed up what?” Shawn replied.

Palo remained silent.

“Evolution!”

Shawn was now engaged as Palo sat silently. “Aren’t we already doing that? Our experiments prove that.”

“Not exactly,” I proclaimed. “We can predict evolutionary rates and we can force mutation over generations.”

“And…,” Shawn stammered.

“And what? We need to force evolution in the generation.”

“That can’t be done. Besides, even if we could no one would support it.”

Palo woke up, “It is being done, I’ve heard about it.”

“I’m not talking about simple mutations or alterations.”

“Then what?” Shawn said.

“Intelligence.”

“Intelligence?”

“Yes. We need to find a way to force evolution of intelligence.”

“That’s messed up, dude.”

“Is it? We’ve talked about the theory that ‘aliens’ have visited, and how some believe seeded us here. Many believe they are far more intelligent than us.”

“Okay, you’re losing it, bro. You’re not making sense.”

“No listen. What if we can leapfrog forward with evolution?”

“Leapfrog forward,” Shawn said irreverently.

“C’mon, we need to force evolution of intelligence that leapfrogs future generations, but do it now, in the current generation. Say we figure out how to do it and force it out two-hundred years. It’s like time-travel.”

“Time-travel? You’ve gone insane.”

“Have I?”

Palo spoke up, “I think we all need a break. Let’s take a break.”

With that we all went in separate directions. Palo retreated to his own apartment, Shawn went to his room, and I went for walk around campus. I walked around for nearly two hours thinking about what had transpired. I could see how they thought I was insane, but I believed the science and technology was there. I had to move forward—with or without them.

The next day we reconvened, and I convinced them to give me five hours a week of their time and we could reassess the idea in one year. My life became immediately more complicated. I was working on my own project, working on their projects, and doing the everyday curriculum and lab work. I rarely slept.

We continued my project into our fifth year of our PhD, with little progress. In fact, during the last year I felt like we had taken a step backward. Shawn and Palo had long finished their project and had moved on to other projects. They were pretty well set up to earn their PhD. Me on the other hand, not so much.

I had considered every scientific and technological angle but had no success. I even resorted to experimenting on myself. I worked that fifth year in total isolation and made some small discoveries along the way, and it may have been my most successful year of my life, but I couldn’t crack the original idea and I was obsessed with it.

I ultimately wrote my dissertation and presented my findings, but it was met with much contempt. Most found it offensive and disturbing that I could claim such a thing—and took exception that I had experimented on myself.

Just like that my career was over. I was run out of town and never did receive my PhD. Admittedly, I was never quite myself after that and had been in and out of a mental hospital more than a handful of times. The last time I entered I never came out.

In my later years, I had a visitor. It was Shawn whom I hadn’t seen or heard from since our days in school. I knew he thought I was crazy, but he never let on. We exchanged pleasantries and took a seat on the couch in the common area.

He asked, “What do you do to keep yourself busy through the days?”

I responded, “Well, I keep journals of things that I see, hear, taste, smell, and feel.”

He seemed mildly confused.

I clarified, “I see, hear, taste, smell, and feel things regular humans can’t. There’s a lot more in my journals.”

“What? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

 “I have a pile of journals. It’s all in the journals.”

“No, what do you mean regular humans?”

“Well, in my last year of school, I figured out how to generate and add a twenty-third pair of chromosomes.”

There was a long pause. Some fifteen seconds had elapsed.

“That’s ludicrous…and immensely farfetched.”

“Is it? I’ve reached a whole new level of consciousness.”

“You’re talking about…”

“Unity consciousness, yes, forty-six and two,” I interrupted. “It’s taken years to propagate to all my cells, but I feel the process is complete.”

“This is insane. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“Believe it.”

“If this is true, why are you in a mental hospital?”

“It’s simple, my dissertation and presentation caused such a stir and controversy—and contempt—that everyone believed or assumed I was crazy. I was ostracized and never able to work again or go anywhere public. Secondarily, I struggled mightily adapting to my newfound consciousness. The changes were happening faster than I could adapt.”

“Yes, I heard some things about your paper, but it was difficult to believe, and I thought it was all hearsay. But there’s no record of your paper.”

“I know. All my equipment and materials were confiscated. By whom, I don’t know.”

“What exactly was in the paper that caused such contempt?”

“Uh, I claimed I’d become more at peace—harmonious—with a greater consciousness…a higher being—my own god if you will. An alien and a god.”