Homunculi

A 16th century alchemist named Paracelsus believed a single load of sperm consisted of hundreds of little tiny fully formed men. After having figured this out, he went on to conject that if a dude were to…say…blow his load in a glass jar and then throw some horse shit on top of it (I’m not making this up) and then seal that jar, he could grow his own little tiny men into fully formed miniature humanoid creatures. Like snap peas in a terrarium.

It seems like that would be an easy enough theory to test. In fact, I myself might have tested it once or twice by mistake on a few occasions in our neighbor’s horse barn. When I was in my early teens. Where I fell down was the glass jar part. I never put it in a jar and sealed it. All those details aside, there is no solid historical proof that fully formed little men were ever the result of the mixture of cum and horse shit despite the fact that some alchemists claimed to have actually succeeded in producing them. Paracelsus christened his theoretical little men homunculi.

Some 500 years after the age of alchemy, a Canadian neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield coopted the term to illustrate the workings of the brain. He mapped brain response of sensory and motor body functions and then drew up the image of a “little man” that represented how our brains interacted with our bodies. What we end up with is a homunculus with giant hands, giant tongue and lips, and an oversized sex organ. It’s not the perfectly formed little dudes the 16th century alchemists fantasized about. Turns out, we all end up looking a lot like Dobby the house elf.

While the alchemist imagined their miniature men to be imbued with some magical spirit, the modern neuroscientist believes that what we are capable of creating is exactly ourselves. In other words, what we are is the sum total of the choices our brain makes.

This idea is easy to get behind. You don’t need to believe in goblins or gods or anything like that. You simply need to stand on the earth, hands on hips, the way Christopher Hitchens did before he died, puff up your chest, and say the words. It makes you feel smart. And logical. And you know your argument will stand. How could anyone argue against it?

The argument holds for Google. And Facebook. And Amazon. The shape of our online homunculi is determined by the videos we click on. The products we purchase. The images we hesitate over. Our little men have already been cast upon the earth. Each cell a tiny Picture of Dorian Gray.

I’m conflicted each time I scroll. While I want to hover over a shot of a young, braless Linda Ronstadt, I don’t want to hover over that shot. I don’t want to be the old pervert who would want to do that.

And so there’s this constant tug of war between the primordial section of my brain and another section that observes the primordial section. It’s true that what constitutes what I’d call myself consists of both parts, and all the other parts too, for that matter. I’m the part that hopes I can learn Spanish and I am also the part too lazy to actually put in the daily effort to make that happen. I’m the part that wants to read Ulysses and the part that doesn’t. I’m the part that hopes for a better world and the part that’s too stuck in my daily routine to do anything different from what I’ve always done. And then I’m the part that beats myself up for not doing anything different from what I’ve always done. I’m the part that believes I can be a better man. Return to that feeling that sitting on a porch. Or on a dock. Or beneath a tree. Or on a rock. Is enough. Who needs this phone? Why do I always need this fucking phone in my hand?

Can’t I go back to that feeling of listening, really listening to an entire Led Zeppelin album? Can I do that? Do I really want to do that?

Can’t I go back to actually reading an entire book? Do I want to do that?

Do I really want to meditate? Can I even do it anymore? Can I pray? Can I regain the feeling that the search for the elusive thing, that flash of color, is a worthwhile endeavor? Can I find the patience that love requires? The patience acceptance requires? Can I be kind? Do I choose that?

And yet. My feedback loop, that reflection of the choices I make, leads me down the path toward injecting testosterone. And injecting peptides. And watching porn. And hating Angel Reese. And watching fatal highway accidents. And watching great leaping catches. And dunks. And drunks trying to fistfight in the street.

I need to believe I’m more than these choices I continue to make. I need to put this thing down. I need to put the phone down. I need to believe I can be more. If I don’t believe this, I never will be more. And I want to be more. I want to cultivate a better homunculus than the one I continue to cultivate.