don’t keep dosing the baby. that’s one of the things i learned the other day. that kid in self who doesn’t know the name of anything but has a cat-like feel for what’s really going on. ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny they say. i know that’s greek to most. ontogeny is the development of the fetus in the womb, roughly. phylogeny is the evolutionary tree key to classifying animals and other relatives of ours. in the womb, the fetus recapitulates evolution, some say, explaining why human embryos, for example, develop gills early on and then undevelop them.
just so, each day you live out the entire story of your life. you are born in the morning and before you slam down that coffee you are still as innocent and vulnerable as a newborn. forcing yourself into adolescence before your time, you head out into the world, probably driving too fast, to meet your destiny, your job. at the end of the day you are more tired and weary than you expect. your faculties fade with that second glass of wine. you’ve eaten too much. before long you are missing part of the conversation and finally you give in to blessed sleep.