Words&Dirt

“The brain constantly searches for meaning, for connections between objects and qualities that cross-cut the senses and provide information about external existence. We penetrate that world through the constraining portals of the epigenetic rules. As shown in the elementary cases of paralanguage and color vocabulary, culture has risen from the genes and forever bears their stamp. With the invention of metaphor and new meaning, it has at the same time acquired a life of its own. In order to grasp the human condition, both the genes and culture must be understood, not separately in the traditional manner of science and the humanities, but together, in recognition of the realities of human evolution.”

––Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson, pg. 177

“‘This fella in jail, he says, “Anyways, you do what you can. An’,” he says, “the on’y thing you got to look at is that ever’ time they’s a little step fo’ward, she may slip back a little, but she never slips clear back. You can prove that,” he says, “an’ that makes the whole thing right. An’ that means they wasn’t no waste even if it seemed like they was.” ”

––The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, pg. 384