An Ecology of MInd (23 page)

"As far as I am concerned you are the best person to decide what you should think. What I urge is not a particular belief, but rather a better process to
develop those beliefs. Beliefs if they are rigid and resistant to change can be a problem. Thought is our species primary method of adapting to our
environment. We need to do it better."

"An inability of an organism or species to adapt in any way leads to the eventual likelihood of extinction. While I urge you to change your thinking, I
don't care what your final beliefs or thoughts are. That is up to you to formulate in a way that best fits with your individual situations. Instead, I urge
you to focus on the process of developing those beliefs and allow at least the possibility of changing them if new information makes them obsolete. With
the current rate of technological and social change, whatever your beliefs are; they will be challenged much more frequently and there will be more to
adapt to."

"I realize differing beliefs lead to conflict, but that is inevitable in the real world. The conditions and situation of one person are not those of
another. As long the possibility of changing beliefs is present, it at least allows the possibility of change or adaption to new situations. Natural
selection is continually at work, so we will continue to be tested, whether from our own actions with our technological abilities, from bacteria and
viruses or from other threats that we have yet to encounter. We must be able to adapt to survive it."

Dr. Pearson, stopped and looked out over the class. "Put up your hand if today's lecture has made the world seem at least a little different place to you
than it was when you walked in here this morning."

Most of the students put up their hands. Dr. Pearson was content with the response. You never got everybody and in some cases it would merely be that the
person did not like putting up their hand for any reason. A positive response from the students was just a side benefit anyway. His real objective in doing
the lectures were met, regardless how the students felt.

"Well, if I succeeded in making you see the world a bit differently; I've met my personal objective for today's lecture. Thank you all for coming."

Everyone in the lecture room stood up and began to clap.

HE SAT BY A STREAM IDLY WATCHING the small fish dart around the shallows by the shore. While he watched the fish, his mind was deep in thought.

He was a long way from the northern forests where he had grown up. Over the years, he had tended in his wanderings to work his way farther south. He had
found that he liked the heat.

Over the many years, he had alternated between periods of solitude and exploration and periods of being part of a tribe. During those times when he lived
among other people he tried not to use his powers in any obvious way, preferring to pretend to be just a normal man. His ability to change shape let him
pretend to age or even fake being injured if he wished. This let him blend in with a tribe and not be an outsider. He had found he liked and perhaps even
needed that feeling of belonging from time to time.

At other times, he traveled on his own and avoided other people. At those times, he would explore his abilities and improve those that seemed useful. He
also used those times to travel great distances, and he had seen that the world was a much larger place than he had imagined when he was younger.

Sometimes when he was part of a tribe, he would become the leader. Other times he would just be a member of the tribe and not seek to lead at all. He had
taken many wives over the years. Usually, if he had a wife, he would remain with that tribe at least until she died. He would make himself appear to age at
the same rate as those around him. Usually, he had no children and on those occasions when his wife did have children, he had noticed that they seldom
looked like him but tended to resemble some other man in the tribe.

In those cases, he would confront his wife quietly when no one else was around and try to discover her wishes. If she had just been trying to have children
and wanted to stay with him, then he would continue with her as his wife and would raise the children as his own. If she preferred to go with another male
of the tribe, he would let her go. If necessary he would leave the tribe in order for her to do that. At times, it was painful, but his life seemed
unending and the pain would fade with time. For normal humans, their lives were so brief in comparison and a few years was all they had. If he cared about
them, he would often give their happiness preference over his own. Happiness for a significant part of their short life seemed to be more important than
sorrow he may feel for a relatively brief time in his vastly long life.

If he raised the children, he would usually stay at least until they reached adulthood. He was pretty sure he could not give normal woman children.
Perhaps, there was some way, but he had not found one. Perhaps he needed to find a woman like him, if there was such a thing. So far, he had never come
across anyone like him.

During his time with this current tribe, he was the shaman. This meant he was the one that spoke to the spirits for the tribe, and he took care of most of
the healing and tending of the sick. He was actually not bad at it, and he had no fear of catching any illness himself.

With his abilities, he could not heal other people like he had done himself so many years ago. He had never managed to do that, but he could sense things
like where and how far a piece of wood was in an injury. He could then grasp the wood with his ability and remove it all intact. He was always careful that
nobody else saw exactly how he did things like that. Sometimes he could also put internal pressure on the wound until it clotted enough to stop bleeding.

He could make the tissue around a deep or large wound move and cover over or close the wound and get the patient to look healed, but the internal workings
were not healed. With major injuries, the patients usually died, despite his best efforts.

His abilities had gradually expanded over the years to where he could alter some things beyond his body. He could make things move, lift them, or throw
them with his ability. He could throw a stone with his ability, much harder and more accurately than with a sling, and he was very good with a sling due to
years of practice.

He could handle multiple items at once and could shape items as well. He could also duplicate simple items. He had never managed to duplicate anything
living. His copy may look like the bird or plant, but it did not live and was not edible. The ability to do these things had grown slowly, and now he could
do them to distances of about as far as he could reach with the tips of his fingers. He also did not need to see the items to manipulate them.

He practiced whenever he could do so without people seeing and kept trying to discover new ways to use his abilities. There was one idea that he had about
a moon ago that kept popping up in his mind. He kept thinking and thinking about it and had decided that he would try it.

Not all of his ideas were related to his abilities. There was another one that he had been working on for a few years now. During his wanderings, he had
noted that when a tribe migrated, they usually followed a fairly set route. He had noticed that some plants seemed to be prevalent, in certain areas, and
the tribe would gather the same foods in these areas repeatedly.

A number of years ago he had started hoarding the seeds from the foods that had been allocated to him. He had begun putting them just below the surface of
the soil in the same areas as they had found the plants.

He had noticed over time that the desirable plants became much more prevalent in those areas. It had started as a slow increase of the different plants,
but over time the effect of him doing this with the seeds had created fairly large areas of the desirable plants. When the tribe returned they could
harvest them. It made enough of a difference that the tribe had grown in size due to the greater availability of food.

Based on these results, he proposed to the tribe that they try something new. He had suggested that part of the tribe stay here at this spot and work at
expanding what he had done on a small scale with his few seeds. The rest of the tribe would still move around in search of game and other foods but would
stay closer to this spot and return more frequently. The idea was to try to increase the food plants in this area to the level that the tribe would not
have to roam any more. They could stay in one location with a larger food source than before.

The area he had chosen to try doing this with the plants was a fertile area between two large rivers. He had originally been concerned that the rivers
flooded regularly. Despite this, the plants within the area had always seemed abundant whenever the tribe had migrated here.

He had been with this tribe for many years and had been faking his aging to the point that he now appeared to be a relatively old man. For this reason, he
had decided it was time to leave the tribe. He could still check back from time to time to see how the experiment with the plants was doing.

The last few years he trained an apprentice shaman to take his place. There was not much more he could teach him so the needs of the tribe would continue
to be met. Hamril had been by far the brightest of his options for an apprentice and had mastered the normal skills of a shaman. He also taught him the
additional knowledge of what to do with the seeds. Hamril would never be as good at treating injured tribe members because he had no special abilities, but
did as well as could be expected with that limitation. Yes, a good time to leave was now.

He had sent for Hamril and was just waiting for him to come. After a short time, he saw Hamril walking quickly from the camp and coming towards him. He was
an alert and healthy young man. Hopefully, he would live and be the tribe's shaman for a number of years.

“You wished to see me honored one?”

“Yes Hamril, thank you for coming so quickly. The reason I asked you to come is that I will be leaving the tribe.”

Hamril seemed very surprised. “Why honored one? Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I will be going on my own, which means you will now be the shaman for the tribe.” He could tell Hamril was excited by the prospect. He knew he was
ambitious, but he had also been a good apprentice. He liked him better than many of the children he had raised as his own. “I won’t be coming back so you
should choose an apprentice and start training him.”

“Where will you go?”

“You may or may not have known that I was not born to this tribe. I joined it many years ago, before you were born. I have decided that I would like to see
the land I came from once more before I die, and I don’t have a long time left to do it. You have learned well, what I have taught you, and you will make a
good shaman.”

“Thank you honored one, but I will miss you.”

“I have not told the chief that I am leaving so you should go and tell him that you are now the new shaman. He may not like it because he does not like
change, but he will accept it as you are my only apprentice. I am leaving now and will not be here for the chief or other tribe members to consult, so they
should learn to rely on you much quicker than if I remained for them to run to instead of you. Again, remember what I taught you, and you will do well.
Good bye Hamril.”

“Good bye honored one, have a safe journey.”

“Thank you.”

With that he walked slowly away from the camp. He still had to pretend to be old, just until he got out of sight of any onlookers, then he could change to
a new form and move much quicker on his journey.

He had no specific destination in mind. He just wanted to put some distance between himself and the tribe. For what he planned on trying, he wanted to be
undisturbed, so he would look for some place isolated, where normal humans could not easily go.

He walked for about a quarter of a day and then veered towards the main river nearby. Still walking like an old man he made his way down to the bank of the
river. Once there, he looked around carefully and could see no observers. He waded out into the river. When it was deep enough, he submerged himself below
the surface of the water. Then, staying underwater, he moved rapidly upstream. If there were any observers, it would look as if he had drowned and been
carried off by the current.

One of the things he had discovered was that he could move his body through water or the air by willing it so. He could fly if he wanted, but it was too
easy to be observed if he did. He could take the shape of a large bird, but he never managed to fly very well in that form.

Over the years, he had attempted a variety of things with his ability to change his shape. He could change his general appearance and height at will. He
also tried changing into various animal forms. He had more success with animals he was more familiar with. He usually needed to have a good mental image of
what changes he wanted to make. If a change wasn't quite right, he could continue to alter his shape until he was satisfied.