Many mornings we have strawberries for breakfast. I wash them for both of us and slice them. One morning I came upon a moldy strawberry. This, in and of itself, is not that uncommon. Naturally, I try to minimize the instances of this happening to our strawberries because I hate to be wasteful. I blame myself; this should not have happened. That is, I either picked ones that were moldy (or close to it) or waited too long to eat them. I curse and toss it in the compostable bin.
I know, this is spending far too much brain power on a moldy strawberry. Or more accurately, too much time thinking about mold. On the other hand, mold can still be fascinating, right? Let’s imagine the possibilities. We manufacture penicillin, a life-saving antibiotic, from a type of mold.
It was many years ago in high school when a teacher suggested we read Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. It would’ve made sense for it to have been from geometry, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Mr. Simpson who suggested it. It’d be years before I got to it, but still, I did. I could describe it to you, but really many others will describe it much better than I.
The only reason why I mention it, is to similarly take you on a journey. It is satire; it is fiction. Consider that this is just a way to explore the imagination and maybe to look at how we interpret elements in our own lives. It is perhaps a mechanism to get some perspective and maybe reevaluate our approach to some ideas. Let’s imagine what it’d be like if fungal spores developed consciousness, intelligence, and self-awareness. What might that look like?
Life can be troubling to a young fungal spore, and for Bobby, it is not different. His life began humbly on a world that his friends and family called Strawberry. It is all he has ever known. He has contemplated what he wants to do with life, but no one else seems to want to listen to his aspirations. Maybe he doesn’t want to spread to other berries, at least that’s what he reasons. Consequently, they rebuff him every time; oftentimes the conversation ends with, “It’s what we do.” Meanwhile, he imagines a life deeper than spreading; there must be something more than just a nomadic, self-indulgent existence.
Bobby heard these stories of humans his entire life; that without them we would not exist. That we’re intentional products of their design or at very least we’re permitted to exist by their inaction. They have a super-spore existence and intelligence; we dare not question their intentions. They are our creators, and we are their intelligent design. We may only speak about them with great reverence, and we must continue to live in servitude to them.
Bobby argued more than once that maybe humans created us by accident, that maybe we are simply a side effect of what they have done. That even if they do have super-spore existence, it is not omniscience nor omnipotence. In order words, it’s not without bounds, it’s merely beyond the bounds of what us spores can understand and do. Furthermore, he even suggested the wildly unpopular idea that maybe humans don’t want us to spread to the next berry. These wild ideas are heresy. Therefore, the elders of the community have labeled Bobby as a ‘troublemaker’. We dare not question the will of the humans. Trust that they put us on this strawberry intentionally. We dare not question why; humans have a greater intelligence and wisdom. There is a deeper meaning to our existence. End of discussion!
Seeking enlightenment, Bobby speaks to the wiser and more open-minded in his community. These scholars speak of documented cases where humans have willfully been advocating for the existence spore-kind. They speak of legendary tales of folklore, with names of spores like Portobello and Shiitake; they helped nourish these humans. There’s even a tale of a spore that healed humans, her name was Penicillin. Those events are documented by scholars, and as such, they’re beyond contestation.
Similarly, these scholars also warned about incurring the wrath of humans. There are wildly magical poisons that kill spore-kind upon exposure. We should not test their patience; they can unleash this ‘bleach’ upon us at will. Humans are not exerting vengeance; they are exerting justice for having gone astray.
Naturally, Bobby tries to reason that there’s no correlation between spreading from berry to berry and this deadly bleach of lore… nor is there any relation to the nourishing of humans… or healing them. However, it’s all falling upon deaf ears.
Though it seems that not all ears are deaf. He gets a message from the Spore Underground. There’s a growing movement that maintains even if the tales of Portobello, Shiitake, or Penicillin are real, we have been wildly misinterpreting these accounts. We are not merely their creation; we have our own existence that is independent of their will.
More spores continue to talk. Meanwhile, each talk becomes more and more heated; they polarize the population. Two groups emerge, the Radicals and the Traditionalists. Bobby joins the Radicals. The Radicals gain enough political following to establish a presence in the Spore Parliament. They pass laws that allows spores to forgo the spreading from berry to berry; Traditionalists consider this to be your civic duty.
The rift grows wider and wider between the two parties. Eventually this erupts into the Spore Civil War. All of this was caused by the claim that all of us spore-kind are a willful, intentional creation of humankind. Radicals see this claim as unsubstantiated, that you can’t make that assertion because there is no evidence to suggest it. Traditionalists insist that the evidence is there; you need to have faith. That is the test, to make that leap of faith.
This rift started this tragic war within Spore-kind and pinned family against family…
Or perhaps it’s just a moldy strawberry, and there’s nothing more to ponder.