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.You also think that you know what you mean when you think of your body, your flesh, your geneticmake-up.You think of yourself as a coherent entity, an individual, a person.You think of yourself as anenduring being, which was blueprinted by the meeting of a particular sperm and a particular ovum, whichentered its separate existence at birth, which has continued to grow and mature and adapt to external Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlcircumstance until the present moment, and which will continue to develop and age and be repaired asbest it can until it loses its battle against the forces of decay in the moment of death, and then proceeds torot into fuming embers.Perhaps you recognize that this story is really the story of two little packages ofDNA, one of which set forth in its spermatic carriage to find its destined partner in the heart of anawesome cellular fortress, but if you do, be not overproud: your penetration of illusion is little moreprofound than the folly of the most ignorant churchman.A mind cannot help but conceive of a body in such terms, most especially its own.Even a mind whichhas some inkling of its own illusoriness is inclined to feel confident of its body, accepting its ownreducibility to the electrical and chemical activity of a brain which is, after all, a marvel of coherency andrational arrangement.The individual whose blueprint is a particular set of genes cannot help but see thatset of genes as a fascist state, where every single gene has a precise and special role to play, entirelydevoted to the good of the whole.The individual cannot help but see disruptions of that fasciststate whether they originate from within, as mutations and cancers', or from without, as viruses asthe work of vile, dark-cloaked anarchists with lighted Molotov cocktails in their hands.The individualcannot help but lend his wholehearted support to the secret police of the immune system, to the antibodydeath-squads which ride forth upon their sleek white corpuscles to annihilate the enemy, taking noprisoners and showing no quarter.All this is an accountable illusion, but it is an illusion nevertheless.You are not the same person you wereten years ago, or ten minutes ago.The story of your physical life is a fantasy, less wild by far than thefantasy of your mental life, but a fantasy nevertheless.The zygote which began the story, infected bymutation from the very start, spawned billions of daughter-cells, each one slightly different from its parent,no two of them exactly alike.Every cell in your body is an individual of sorts, and their community is noidealised hive of specialised labourers with only one cause.As cells die and new cells are generated,moment by moment and day by day producing an entirely new corpus every eight years or so thegenetic make-up of the whole shifts and drifts.And even if it were not so, still the genes would notcomprise a perfect fascist state, for their alliance as chromosome and sets of chromosomes is ridden withcountless petty conflicts and competitions; the functioning physical individual is a democracy in which aloose-knit majority reigns supreme over a host of recessive splinters which are for ever about their ownbusiness, forming putative parties and coalitions.That natural selection which is the designing hand of evolution is ongoing within as well as without.Anindividual is the work of but a tiny fraction of the DNA which it contains, and that work is not withoutindustrial tensions and disputes.Both within and without the cellular workplaces there is a vast host ofpassengers and passers-by: itinerant fragments of DNA which may be tolerated or not by thehalf-efficient secret police of the immune system, but which in either case might entertain hopes of oneday being absorbed into the body politic, usefully employed.This is evolution.Imagine me: I am evolution.Once, your ancestors were apes, incapable of speech save for a few criesof alarm, incapable of much learning, save for the one-by-one acquisition of new responses toexperienced situations.Now, you are men.It was not God which gave you your minds', your selves',your souls'; it was evolution.Do you think that evolution has come to its end? Can you possibly believethat evolution will play no more capricious tricks upon your consciousness? Of course you can; of courseyou do.Mind cannot imagine, in any coherent fashion, its own future evolution, and can only regard theidea of any such evolution with horrified alarm or delighted surprise.I do not come from outside, because there is no outside for me to come from; only illusion and blindprejudice leads us to discriminate between the DNA which is already bound into the chromosomes ofour cells, and that which roams free, pioneering and buccaneering.I come from the borderlands, but theborderlands are everywhere.The moment I have insinuated myself into the heartland of your cells even Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmla few of your cells I am you, however disruptive and disturbing I may seem to our painstaking secretpolice.You might insist, if you will, that there was a time when I was not you; but at that time, you werenot you either.No matter how monstrously alien I am, how gruesomely horrific, how dazzlinglyenlightening, I am, from the very moment of my beginning, where I have always been.I am repeating myself, I know.I hope you will forgive me.I am exuberant with new-foundconsciousness, new-found powers of analysis, new-found powers of speech.Do you know me now?I am a vampire, desperately and devoutly hungry for human blood.I am a virus, precipitating fever and madness.I am love for love, at the end of the day, is only one of many means to the end of evolution, andperhaps not the best.A human being, mind and all, is merely one of the ways by which DNA makesmore DNA; love true love, with all its eroticism and romance and nobility and ecstasy andfruitfulness is but an instrument of that underlying, evolving chemical romance: of the fundamentalalchemy of life.I am a happy ending: a reconciliation of all that was confused and divided, replete with hope for thefuture.I am the only ending, the only rehabilitation, the only health, because I am the only future.I cannotbe denied; I cannot be defied; Iam.Who am I, really?I am Anne.I am Gil.I am am, not was Maldureve, the wickedness of the dream.I am am, not will be you.You may not yet have reached that magical moment of startlement; thehorror and the delight may even now be creeping over you; but either way, you will one day hear myvoice.Don't despair.I beg of you, don't despair! Don't turn away in fright and loathing there really is noneed.Anne was right, you see, to welcome me into her heart, into her bed, into her being and right,too, to insist that it must be on her own terms.Together, she and I are more than we ever could havebeen had there been no final union between us.I will acknowledge, gladly, that I was dangerous andcapable of evil, but I was blind and could not see; I was dumb and could not think; I was unconscious,and wisdom was denied to me.I'm different now.I know myself, and I know how to avoid excess
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