I’ve never birthed or raised babies, so I’m woefully ill equipped to be doling out advice on how to do that. But I was blessed to win the birth lottery – meaning I was born as a big-brained human, as opposed to being born a hippo or a raccoon or a tree frog. Thank goodness!
Having a big brain is the same as owning any other really valuable asset. It has the potential to learn, grow and expand and become a valuable asset for the owner and the world at large. Or, like someone who won millions in a jackpot prize and ended up broke in a couple of years, it can be totally wasted. The only real difference between the two outcomes, is the choices and decisions the big-brained owner made.
That’s why someone can be born and raised in the most unfortunate of circumstances, and turn it all around and end up wildly successful in life. Someone else may be born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, and end up derelict and sleeping under a bridge.
BUT …
It’s also possible that the wildly successful person is the meanest, crookedest, cruelest, most evil cheat that ever walked the earth. And that homeless guy maybe the kindest, gentlest soul and he’s out there on the street loving and encouraging and lifting up his friends and filling them with hope.
Most of us fall somewhere between those two extremes, of course. You can be rich and nice or poor and nasty, or any and all levels in between of either version.
I suspect that’s why the wildlife in the forest can birth, raise, and send their young out into the world in mere months or just a year or two. Hippos, racoons, tree frogs and all the other creatures are on a life path that’s fairly cut and dry:
1- Find food and shelter.
2- Procreate.
3- Avoid becoming someone else’s food.
The higher up the food chain, the easier number 3 will be. I’m sure life is a whole different experience for the tree frogs than for the racoons and hippos. But for the offspring of the big brained humans, it can take twenty years or more before they are grown up and able to function on their own. And they will have to be taught and trained about those same three steps for a successful life.
But that third step has altogether different shades of meaning for the big brained humans. Unless we happen to encounter some dangerous critter – either because we intentionally went out into the wilderness, or maybe the wilderness found us in our own home or property – we don’t worry too much about getting harmed or devoured. Be glad T-Rexes are extinct … THAT would’ve been tricky to navigate!
But unlike other species, humans lead much more complex lives. Beyond eating, sleeping and procreating, big brained humans are blessed with various skills, talents and abilities and a special creative spark that motivates us to design, build and make stuff. Give us complex problems to figure out, and our big brains really shine, with all kinds of thinking and pondering, plotting and planning.
Now put billions of us on the planet – or maybe just 2 to 4 of us in one house – and we all begin to bump into each other. All that pondering, creating and building can lead to consequences we didn’t anticipate. Our big creative brains come fully equipped with egos and opinions and definite ideas about what we want and how we want everybody else to treat us.
Everyday we take all that out into the world with the other billions and compete with all of them to feed and shelter our families, along with all of the other shiny trinkets and perks like recognition, wealth, status, material things. Billions of egos competing for the top spots, trying to be somebody, trying to win the prize, trying to beat the other guy.
The competition is stiff, and things can get nasty fast. Forget the T-Rex … in this landscape “getting devoured” takes on all new shades of meaning. That’s why it takes us two decades to raise our young. Before we can push them out of the nest, they’ve got to be prepared to navigate this mess that is our world.
It makes me glad that most of the authors I illustrate for are Christian authors, because having a big brain and lots of smarts isn’t enough … we need WISDOM. And there’s only one true Source for that.
We’re not likely going to create that one book that will turn the world on it’s head, but in every book we make, and every story we tell, and every character we create, we can reveal a little more about Him and how to navigate this crazy world.