It must be encoded there, in the childhood memories of our synapses and our cells — how we came out of the ocean 35 trillion yesterdays ago, small and slippery, gills trembling with the shock of air, fins budding feet, limbs growing sinewy and furred, then unfurred, spine unfurling beneath the bone cave housing three pounds of pink flesh laced with one hundred trillion synapses that still sing with pleasure and awe when touched by the wildness of the world. Even as the merchants of silicon and code try to render us disembodied intellects caged behind screens, something in our animal body knows where we came from and where we belong. Gibbons from from Natural History and Illustrations of Mammals by Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, 1824.
Gibbons from from Natural History and Illustrations of Mammals by Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, 1824. (Available as a print and a greeting card.