We’ve got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any other person. We’ve got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee. We’ve got thirty per cent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the shared genetic connections among all living beings, promoting a sense of belonging and interconnectedness.
Caryl Churchill emphasizes the remarkable genetic similarities between humans, animals, and even plants, suggesting that this interconnectedness can provide comfort and a sense of belonging. By reflecting on our shared biology, she invites us to appreciate our place in the broader tapestry of life, underscoring that we are all part of a larger community, whether human or otherwise.
In practice
In a science class discussing genetics and diversity among species.
I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time, but to do so in order to come out on the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color.
Given the accelerating velocity of history, we should begin charting deliberately the next phase in its trajectory.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other, and the former will be objects to which the latter attach themselves.
Probability is the very guide of life.
I confess that there is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no writings which will lead your mind back to Spirit. Today I speak this way, tomorrow that, but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.
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