Worlds Collide

When a sperm fertilizes an egg, one world merges into another to create the miracle of a new entity.  But eggs and sperm are not the only organisms with a propensity to merge; all cells have needs and influences.  Viruses, bacteria and medicines circulate through our bodies provoking electro-chemical reactions, keeping what is needed and discarding the rest. If there is an overwhelming invasion, a serious trauma, or disease and things get out of hand, the body calls in a bigger army of antibodies to keep order.  All cellular encounters have an element of invasion and surrender that result in the establishment of new hierarchies like animals joining a pack.

When the government of East Germany tottered and the wall came down, the former Soviet appendage collapsed into the West.  Perestroika looked better than another failed five-year plan, and those in the East saw the West with its flashy Mercedes success as rightly theirs.   They wanted what other Germans had, even though the Westies had worked hard for their elevated standard of living.  The East had stood still in time, chunks fell from buildings, and the wartime infrastructure was crumbling.  When the rudderless government capsized into the West, it was joyous and but painful re-birth.  And like the right sperm meeting the right egg at the right time, the invasion and surrender was difficult but inevitable.    Those in the West weren’t thrilled to be overrun by job-hunting banana-hungry Easties, but in the end all Germans were forced to resign themselves to the new reality. 

As European countries fight to keep their Union alive, there has never been a longer period of freedom from war and want.  The illusion of wealth and stability looks attractive to those on the outside who have been crippled by war and corruption.  From Africa to Asia, there are many governments who can’t or won’t help their citizens to lead dignified productive life.  The old are resigned to stagnation and the young look North and West, lured by a wonderland of things that appear to be available to everyone.  Unfortunately, many young souls with dreams don’t know that the Mediterranean is not a river, and that they will not be able to swim to the other side.  In North Africa they are held hostage by traffickers until there is nothing left to squeeze out of them, and are then herded onto sinking boats that are pushed off toward Europe.  Decrepit fishing boats and cheap inflatable rubber craft are draining the youth of Africa and the Middle East into Europe.  Some who arrive are disillusioned that they can’t have everything as soon as they hoped, but many make a decent life for themselves, coping with nostalgia and the slings of assimilation like millions of migrants before them.   These days the current of population flow is directed North and West, though someday it may flow in another direction. 

The merging of different worlds happens by osmosis.  There are clashes along the way, resistance and insistence, but the new order becomes a historical fact.  When the Ice Age retreated and Cro-Magnon man took over from Neanderthals, it was a process of assimilation and elimination until modern man prevailed. 

If there is ever an arrival from space, the two worlds will fight and make peace and fight again until a hybrid species emerges by incorporating useful qualities from both parties.  Every new generation sheds its parental skin of outmoded preconceptions and finds no barriers to accepting new realities.

 The principles of one entity merging into another can occur on a human emotional level.  When people first meet they use invisible antennae to look for signs of aggression or agreement.  People may become friends and participate in a complex dance of two souls who have not merged on a cellular level.  If the parties are pulled toward a more intimate bond, their exchange of genetic material and strong sense of unity epitomizes one world melting into another.   Like a sperm knocking on the shell of an egg, East Germans going West, or Africans going North, the tendency to merge personally and socially, dictates the path we need to take if we wish to survive.  Isolation is death. 

But Nature has some twisted tricks up her sleeve because she favours attraction between unequal forces. As Darwin demonstrated, the invader doesn’t need to be strong nor the defender weak.  When worlds collide, the species that proliferates is the one that is most adaptable.     

If two similar worlds meet they can be like two suns or two male dogs, circling each other at a wary distance, looking for weaknesses to exploit.  If they are equally matched and engage in a fight for dominance there is the risk that they will destroy each other.  Nature prefers pairs made of disparate elements because their union produces more adaptable offspring than those of identical homogeneous partners.  There is no attraction in sameness; we were not mean to couple with ourselves. 

The universe is full of moons, planets and suns caught in the orbit of stronger powers, and this configuration makes for both stability and instability in the universe.  Being caught in an orbit is a delicate balance, too close and you burn up in the face of the sun, too far away and you become cold and lose the grip of gravity so that you fly off into empty space.  Our universe is an active environment that is governed by laws but it is subject to accident and coincidence, a grab bag of factors that can precipitate dramatic change.  The process of one nation merging with another is a minuscule illustration of universal inevitably.    It is not a bad thing, but a necessary process that propels us forward, an inevitable change that many struggle to accept.