Just'n Others' Life
an unedited & unfinished autobiography by Daniel Kingery
Proven flawlessly true: No book ever fully discloses the life of the book's primary subject; whether that subject is the hero, villain, even if the subject is the object of a biography or even an autobiography. Your life, like the lives of every –yes, every living being is interesting to another if the teller leaves out most of the dull, everyday-type information to focus on a mix of the battles, the loves, the crime, the adventures, the deceit, and other highlights that include the joys of victory and the agonies of defeat. Thus this book, an autobiography of Just'n Others' Life by Daniel Kingery.
You're a tough crowd; asking yourself: Is an autobiography when the author writes about their on life or someone else's? On this universal speck of dust we call Earth, I AM just'n other life: Thus the title.
Should I entice you to travel with me through the archives of time and space by using cleverly worded flashbacks about lessons I tripped over all my life?
Maybe... I'll just hook electrodes to you, turning on the juice, and let you have it in short form.
Perhaps...
Well... Maybe, I simply twiddle my thumbs a bit, start off slow and boring, work you into a frenzied climax that makes you want to run for the exit; jump off the train; and never return! But your feet won't move because I screwed them to the floor. You just have to know...
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This train wreck, as do most, begins some time prior to arrival. Once the man I knew as my father injected his load into the vessel offering slightly better odds of survival than a certain, rather sudden death of exposure to the elements of a flower pot; millions of us raced for the single-seat carrier. In rare cases, more than one passenger might board.
The ride promised everything; love, hate, friendship, envy, war, peace, riches, poverty and a host of other dreams and nightmares. All I had to do was know when and where to get off and when and how to get back on the ride at the innumerable possible connections, rest stops, and break downs.
Seeing hundreds and thousands of fellow racers dropping out and dying off, I wondered if this rides was really as good as the hype that convinced me to participate.
On my arrival, I quickly realized this was not one of those first-come-first-served rides. Several of us arrived at nearly the same time with all the earlier arrivals died or near death without accessing the ride.
It quickly became a cruel joke: Why so many millions of possible passengers with too few seats?
As tough as this is to understand, the only sense of it is that the millions of us work like an assault team, constantly battering and weakening the defenses to override the lock-down mechanisms of the vehicle that at rest might preserve a few of us. If this were some sort of “divine engineering”, the joke was on me.
In all, only luck prevailed. Those who arrived first seemed most likely to get on board; yet, they failed. Others not arriving soon enough also failed to board.
No sooner than I happening upon the entry code, I entered without time to pass the information along to others travelers. The realization soon struck me and this biological vehicle I entered that our mutual survival hinged on our ability to successfully dock with supply system that might keep the both of us alive.
Considering our combined size and the vastness of the expanse within we traveled, we needed to exchange and combine much information.
I, was no longer me. That which in entered, and myself became one body, a union that depended solely upon our ability to cooperate with each other. With my partner, we successfully stalled much of the natural cycles of our host, yet another biological vehicle we had to learn how to communicate with and control to some degree, if we were to survive.
My... Our survival, then as now, depended upon our ability to increase, not only in size but also in number.
With time to contemplate my condition a while, I realized that even prior to this latest union, I myself was also the union of many other parts that combined to make me who I was then. Even in that somewhat solitary life, those parts that were me reproduced and died off at differing rates. My question to myself then is this: If those parts that are me die off or change their form, and I, merely another part in this new larger union; what then is my life expectancy?
It was some time until I realized an increase in numbers, regardless of how small each one of the individuals, the body total grew in mass. The understanding I gained after the union with my ride simply reiterated what seemed an eternal lesson. We all are parts of a larger body as our bodies are made up of much smaller parts. All living but only so long.
After a thorough exchange of information, we really are but one being in this new union, we once again refer to ourselves once again as I.
I began in creasing in number. At first, there was one other than myself, then we became four, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two. In short order, we were millions. By now I am no longer my ancestor who traveled the expanse of space from one universal body into another. Much of the information is lost as the last several generation to which I belong only knew of our present environment.
I am no longer just me again.
Living conditions seemed pleasant for quite a while to have so much company.
As with most conditions where too many occupy the same space, crisis developed. As we grew, there simply were to many of us all doing the same, which was as we pleased. Wastes accumulated all about us. When it looked as if there was no hope, many of us began specializing in our tasks. Some turned the garbage around us into raw materials for our community use, while others took the waste products to recover as much raw material for other uses. Others began to organize others for never-before-heard-of ventures; to which they were readily condemned and condoned by hosts of others. We became such a loose association of communities specializing in a variety of technology.
Much of the nutrients provided to us from the universal source within which we no live, began causing some of us great harm while others thrived without hindrance. Such seeming favoritism allows others to think themselves more important than others. When the supposed universal favoritism shifts, it weakens the previously strong and strengthens the weaker. When these shifts happen and and those experiencing them do not learn from them, repeated injuries harm both those favored and those harmed.
If all of us work together for our common survival, we stand a good chance of thriving in more advanced stages of our development.
As we grow, we take on form unique within our growing populations. We are no longer merely a glob of exactly identical individuals.
For preservation, some of us become more protective of others, shielding them from harms they are not adapt to protect themselves against. Such protection is not cheap. Those protected must prove themselves useful to the union in some manner. Such benefits need not be realized directly by the protector, but may be indirectly attained when those protected supply valued product to others that the protector relies upon for their survival.
Our thriving population soon becomes a drain on our universal supply. That supply we thought we might never exhaust, is now no longer able to provide for us as far as space or food. Our union is so strong now that we are once again singular.
The universal supply within which I reside, begins contracting upon me as if to guide me on a wholly new adventure. No matter in which direction I move, only one works.
My universal host and supply system no longer increases in size to accommodate me. I must abandon this shrinking house.
Increasing pressure on me forces me through the opening in the universe I once knew. The rapid movement of the previously calm fluid house directs me toward the exit. I am not sure whether I am ready. No match. I'm no match for the creature that comes in after me.
Should I fight?
Surrender?
What?
A fight seems the wrong choice. The grip this beast has on me is like to rip my head off as I'm already tangled in my previous supply line.
Without many options, the beast pulls me from my home.
Emerging from the moistness of the previous oceanic universal home, I feel my new home is much drier. Roomier? Oh yes! My limbs no longer confined.
This new environment is strange for me. Previously, I floated and bounced about in an ever shrinking living quarters. Now, there seems an endless expanse about me except on one side; that one side, regardless of how I move, presses on something solid, be it soft or hard.
This is going to require some adjustment.
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As the stories of my evolution go to this point, based solely on the stories told to me by my ancestors that their ancestors told to them, I look nothing like the two that first united and grew into what is now me. I anxiously await the stories about how I got to where I am from these strangers.
Even when my ancestor was nothing but a single cell looking for a ride, I was a living being with a mind of my own; much like I imagine each of the parts that made my ancestor also were distinct living individuals during their time. There is little need for me to dwell upon how it was in the past. The component parts that create each cell, the cells making the organs, we are but one body made up of many. I am legion, for I am many.
In such an organization, one might rightly think it impossible for each of the voices with the whole, the ONE, to gain equal time to fill their needs and desires. As others rightly cypher the impossibility that the ONE who has these billions of voices to care for might never succeed. Fortunately, the probability of all succeeding falls into place when all the voices have but one common objective: The survival of the ONE –the union!
When the survival of the ONE becomes paramount, each individual finds a need or needs that improve the body in total and works on those needs. In return, the ONE –the union of the parts, in order to survive as a unit, it also must see to it that all of its components acquire the raw materials ans supplies they need for a long and healthy life. In this symbiotic relationship, both the greater and the lesser care for each other.
When visitors enter the Union via invitation, unannounced, or through forced entry the survival of the parts and the whole depend upon how they react and interact with each visitor. Should the whole, through it parts, ably incorporate the visitor into the body as a useful and productive member, both the visitor and the whole benefit. To the negative, the visitor may weaken or even be the cause of death for the entire body.
Such is my life.
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It's May 15, 1961 at 10:48a.m. in a small town in the mid-west. This is a completely different school. I do not understand these creatures at all.
In short order, I met my host, my previous vehicle, and supply line who becomes one of my parents, one of my first teachers, and lo-n-behold, one of the ones who sold me the ticket to ride in the first place.
Where my previous quarters were dark most of the time, some shades and shadows along with vibrations, movements, and odd pressure on my house caused me to shift about and lash out at the intruders.
Before entering this new environment, I got the impression someone was trying to communicate with me; they just made no sense. Those sounds probably were the cause of my not being able to communicate with these new strange beings that I cannot even see.
For the next few years, life was rather smooth, at least once I learned some of the communications basics. I had to be careful about the noises I made. Sometimes when I needed to supply nutrients for many of my parts, these strangers either mimicked my sounds, bounced me around, or checked me for leaks.
Becoming mobile was a bit more tedious. Annoying is more like it. These creatures didn't realize that where I lived before, I did not need to get around much. Besides, I floated everywhere.
The protective covering over my light receptors opened and focused. Though it took a while to realize it, I was just a miniature version of those strange creatures I could not understand. Although, a few times I thought they might be understanding me better when they fed me when I asked them; I knew better when they checked for leaks or did not clean the messes in my clothes.
Ah... Mobility!
No longer confined to the space those giants place me, I sometimes make them have to look for me. On one of these occasions, I crawled into a horse coral and got my butt kicked... well, maybe it was my head. In any event, I got my butt kicked.
Those giants got around quicker than I. Just wait until I learn that trick.
I was beginning to understand these giant strangers a little easier. Seems like every time they direct comments at me they say, “No.” Though it was usually, “NO!”
One of those –not listening to those who possibly knew more than me experiences between the face to the ground traveling on all fours and the face forward while balancing on only two limbs, my reward was a rather shallow but long and wide cut from climbing on an old steamer trunk. That gave me a rather impressive scar for later life.
Finally! I'm upright and able to open doors on my own.
These giants come in various sizes. Some of them are not much larger than I, and now I notice there is one smaller than me.
The more of their language I learn, the happier they become.
These giants keep asking me questions. What is this? Is this a ball? Do you know what this is? On and on, the questions keep coming from all of them. Who am I? do you know who that is? Of course there are the many statements. This is a ball, this is a cat. An more questions. Can you say Dada? Can you day Mama?
With all these questions, I thought this is how they communicated. So I started asking questions. What is that? Why did that happen? Why? Why? Why?Why? Why? Who is that? Who? Who?
Now they tell me to –Shut up!
They wanted me to talk, they taught me hoe, now they tell me to shut up. |
