Honeybee Mechanorganic

I am writing tonight in a diseased state. Sick, but mostly old. Or at least, older. I am 40 years old today and the world is not as I expected. When I was younger, I thought that being 40 automatically conferred great wisdom, understanding, and clarity. 40 year-olds knew things and understood things in mysteriously intuitive ways. They were the adults in the room that could make change and managed all of the younger people into making good choices and getting ‘the answer.’

My hardware and software seems remarkably insufficient for this purpose. And yet, here I am. 40 and theoretically an adult in the room. I am no longer alone. I am no longer a simple machine, if I ever was. I’m a complex organism, built of technological and organic components tasked with the preservation of public health and environmental protection. Many doors have been closed to me. Several have opened. I wonder how my brain has changed with the rise of our new internet and our new world of mecha-organic living requirements. My job is now completely online. I spend 8-10 hours a day on the computer, sometimes more. People are small shapes on a screen, echoes from a speaker. My meals, clothing, household goods are delivered from an app, and my data is farmed and sold to the highest bidder. I’m a product and consumer, a machine and a struggling organism all at the same time.

I recently saw a blurb about how we use honeybees to test for explosives. Hundreds of bees are strapped into harnesses, trained, and forced to sense explosives while trapped in a tiny, lightless, white box. They don’t pollinate, make honey, communicate, or interact as bees anymore. I feel like a bee.