iE.S Post-humus

Marcus: FIRST CLASS every TUESDAY 8pm, on Ch 5! says:

heh

In David Macdonald’s “The Velvet Claw”,  it was illustrated that we can tell a lot about an animal, simply by looking at its dental structure and arrangement.
Raised as an inherently boring boy, this book captured my imagination in my younger days. Now as I look back, this book taught me a lot more than just the evolution of mammalian carnivores and taxonomy. It taught me a fundamental principle that ties the natural world with economy; specialisation and survival.

When we look at dogs, we automatically see them as bone-loving carnivores. They like meat. But Dogs are in fact one of the successful omnivores on the planet. Their teeth consists of canines, used to kill and slice the meat of their prey. It also consists of molars at the back, an evolutionary designed that allowed dogs to feed upon fruits in dire times of hunger.
This design was carried on forward into to their bigger descendants… the bears and now extinct bear-dogs.  Bears are big, powerful and easilly the top of the food chain in wherever they live. Grizzly bears are able to chase down fleeting deers with mortifying speed and power. Yet (with the exception of the Polar bear) they also eat a large substaintial amount of fruits, berries and honey. These apex predators enjoy the prestige of being at the top without being limited by its food variety.

Limitation is something that most top specialisers face. Cats can be easilly seen as one of nature’s most fearsome hunters. They saw no need for molars. instead, they traded their fruit grinding teeth for carnassials. modified molars that slice meat. In other words, cats are engineered to kill and only to kill.  Because of this, the more they specialise, the better they get at their trade, the more limited they are by the prey selection.

The same thing could be said for us humans. We can be a jack of all trades or a master of one.
I’ve always seen myself as a bear. Not a specialised killer, but big enough to catch my own prey and yet not limited to only one trade. There was a certain security I had that I can ’slot’ into any vocation, anywhere in the world or industry.

but I learnt last night… that I might have been subconsciously turning into a cat afterall.  Over the years, as I pursued my interests and “talents”… other  aspects of my life have incurred the opportunity cost.

I am now looking at the blades in my mouth. What can I tell by my ‘dental arrangements’ in life?

 that words fail me.
and I fail at words.

All gone pete tong.

meet Tops, my very friendly and funny thai debator

Girl: Can I sit on your lap top?
Top: Depends on the girl.
Kitz: Laptop.

‘It’s so much bigger now’

“That’s what she said”