Haim and Jeul 2

(Earth, outside a ruined city)

Haim: Does it make any difference?

Jeul: Whether you’re a transitional life form or a dead life form? I don’t think it does.

H: I didn’t think so either.

J: Why not?

Because eventually transitional forms go away too, don’t they?

They turn into something else.

So life continues, but the life form does not?

Good. There is really only life. The forms are all ultimately ephemeral expressions of one grand movement.

But the forms do make such a difference! It matters whether you are an ant or an aphid, a human or a cow.

Aphids matter to ants. The ant feeds it, guards it, raises it, milks it, and takes care of the aphid. The aphid needs the ant.

Not all aphids, just the ones that are raised by ants.

That’s right. What you are depends on where you’re at and how the rest of the world relates to you. If you are a wild aphid, then the fortunes of ants are tied to yours in one way – probably as prey and predator. If you are a domestic aphid, then the fortunes of ants are tied to yours in another way.

So, whether you’re a transitional form or a dead life form depends on your relations with the rest of the world?

Yes.

What’s a life form, again?

It’s a form that life takes – not always stable, but certainly differentiated.

Difference’d.

Diversified.

Why does it diversify if the fates of the difference’d life forms are just going to be all tied up together?

You can’t ask why about everything? Sometimes it’s just a matter of how. Diversity is necessary so that life can recombine in surprising ways.

And why? – let’s just say that I don’t care for surprises.

But surprises are the very definition of life.

How is that?

Life isn’t predictable. Rocks are.

I don’t think I agree with you. It might be that I believe that rocks are less boring than you think.

Life has the potential to act upon the exterior world.

H: Volcanoes, stars, hot gasses: I think rocks act on rocks, sir.

J: But rocks don't act on rocks on their own accord.

Haim: Are you talking about will?

Jeul: There's nothing quite like that in a rock.