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pods, we plucked them from

wilted flowers, we spat them

from mouthfuls of fruit and let

them dry hard for safe keeping.

We filled sacks and silos with

nothing but our very favorite

instructions, collected across

millennia so our bellies would

stay full and our beds would

stay soft. We hate hunger and

cold, for good reason. Both will

kill us, in excess. And we are a

restless species, too—we are so

perpetually bored. We yearn for

textures and colors, sweetness

and surprise. But not too much

surprise. Surprise like a birthday

cake, not surprise like a plague.

We protect species that are

beloved by us; we neglect or

destroy those that are not. This

is perhaps one of the most

primal human behaviors there

is, and like all things we do,

we have used it for good, for

ill, and for neither. It is not

enough for us to simply drift

through the world as though

we were bacteria in runoff,

eating whatever happens to