And then the genes took over


Moses was born in the Land of Goshen, destiny’s child, who would grow up to save his people. Well, not really! This is not the story of the Moses born in 14th century BC, but rather of a namesake born in a more modern world closer to the 21st century AD.

Act I
Moses is 10 years old, and he is very happy. He has his whole life ahead of him. He can be anything he wants to be.

Act II
Moses is 20 years old. He is an adult. He can take decisions for himself. He is going to set everything right. He will be all that his predecessors could not. He has the potential and believes in the science of the cultural evolution of man. He believes in how one generation always learns from the mistakes of the last. He knows that he will avoid the pits in which his ancestors fell trying to shed light on the unknown.

Act III
Moses is 30 years old. He feels naked. He feels like he is out of control. He feels like he is not being able to restrain himself anymore, and that by some unknown device, is being pulled into making the same mistakes of his ancestors. On careful inspection, he can see the pits, hidden underneath layers of weeds and bramble, yet he finds himself walking right into it, almost out of instinct.

Act IV
Moses is 40 years old. He looks into the mirror and finds himself looking more and more like his father. The innocence of his boyish features have disappeared with the protrusion of his cheek bones like a cliff overlooking the sea. His nose is fatter now, and has started bending in incomprehensible angles. He feels like everything is easy now because he doesn’t have to think about what he is doing, even when he tries to. He is led by his instincts, and not all of them foster world peace. He is probably a man with a character and he knows what he is thinking, yet he feels tied up in barbed wire, in knots that strangle him more when he tries to break free. He is incapable of changing who he is anymore. ‘They’ call it his ego, out to destroy the world around him. But the explanation really isn’t that simple to him. His genes have taken over his physical and mental self, and as he shares the same flawed DNA of his ancestors, he makes the same flawed decisions and takes the same flawed steps towards his grave. He feels naked, and it dawns upon him that there is no real redemption in the world. The textbook was a whole bunch of poppycock. He feels what is real, and that human nature doesn’t really change from generation to generation, just its manifestation becomes more sophisticated. This gives an illusion of change. Disheartened at this revelation, and that he really isn’t the saviour that ‘they’ once believed he would be, he contemplates putting a bullet through his brain. He fails at that, and after giving it much thought – all the things about life and death and things in between and all that, he gives up and calls up some of his friends – who used to be his friends before they got busy with their own lives, and finds out curiously enough that in their own little ways, they were also going through the same revelations about life and death and the lot. Something changes in him and he knows that he is not alone and that it is a wonderful thing to know that. And that itself, I am afraid my friends, is reason enough for him to see through acts V, VI, VII and the rest of his life.

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