HUMANITY'S FAVORITE POSITION

Consider, for a moment, the fetal position. That perfection-of-pre-natal-comfort in which we curl into just so within the warm liquidy world of our mother's womb. You say you don't remember? Nonsense. Maybe not consciously, but deeply sub-consciously. For this is where it all began, lo these many (or not so many) years ago.

Certainly there are other positions of comfort in our lives. Lounging on couches...floating on the water ...stretched out on the grass to study the clouds. And yet, there is something enduring about the fetal position. Back softly arched, knees gently tucked up to our chins, and heads securely coiled inside it all.

Plato mused that when we are born, we are entering this life from a previously wonderful one. Any fetus would, if it could speak, speak with concern about departing its magnificent fetal universe where there are no threats, and everything needed is supplied. But of course the fetus (and perhaps Plato too) would likely dismiss such a small universe once they enter this much grander one.

As we climb into bed at the end of each day -- alone or with our love -- notice how the fetal position is eventually assumed. It is all so natural. So right. So safe. Lets face it -- this is why sleep was invented. And beds too.

It's not all that different than today's ingenious electric cars. Stop. Park. Coil into the correct position to re-charge. It's what happens as we drift off to sleep. Coiled under the security of our blanket, we take time to re-charge our little lives for one more go at it..

Now on the one hand we have our battalion of evolutionary biologists to explain why our anatomies have developed this way. The genes and cells and blood streams cannot function without re-charging. I'm good with that! On the other hand we have our legion of playwrights and poets to probe the mystery of sleep. Those worlds of dark wonder in our heads:

"To sleep, perchance to dream..." "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care..." "Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep..." "Anyone can escape into sleep; we are all geniuses when we dream, for here the butcher and the poet are equal..."

This is why I often skipped my biology classes, but never my literature ones. Looking back, it still looks like the right choice....