Evolutionary meanderings...

So I was walking with oakdragon the other day, and a bird flew overhead, and I wondered to him about whether humankind would have come up with the idea of air and space travel if there were no flying creatures to model it on... birds, insects, whatnot.

It might put a different spin on evolution, if so. We're used to thinking of evolution in terms of the gradual, linear metamorphosis of genetic data over countless generations. But this would be an evolutionary leap - the activities of a distantly-related species being an essential component of the achievements of this one. So we could see birds and winged bugs as occupying not just their customary biological niches, but also as our direct and necessary forerunners, in an intellectual-evolutionary sense.

Stopping the 'shoulds'

So I'm in the midst of a week off from work, which I've set aside to catch up on a myriad of projects and small tasks.

I'd been feeling a lot of avoidance and procrastination around the largest of the projects. Today it occurred to me that while it would be nice to have those particular projects finished, they aren't really necessities for the time being. I'd been 'should'ing myself around them, thinking that I needed to get those things done in order to justify taking a whole "Projects Week" away from work.

Given that revelation, I can now free up that emotional energy (and time) towards other tasks and projects, ones that will be more self-nourishing and fun.

*Whew*