It came to me in a dream: we’ve mistaken Adam and Eve’s history. Here’s how and why.
We all know the story. Adam and Eve were blissfully happy in their perfect-and-paid-up gated community, until one day Eve got antsy, started asking questions, management got wind of her nosiness and booted the pair for disturbing the peace. Such tragedy! Life outside cushy Paradise – what could be worse!
The attentive reader will note from whose point of view this story is told. Management’s. Paradise is what they say it is, sort of like The Villages, that blissful and interminable retirement community in Florida that keeps trying to enroll me because I spent some days visiting years ago. (Did they read my report?!) All those golf courses, dining options, entertainment and sociability options! All that weather! Who could ask for more! The nerve, audacity, and indecency of that snake insinuating doubt! Rules are rules, comply or it’s sayonara. Have a nice life, you pair! (Adam lived another nine hundred years, according to Genesis 5:5. No record of Eve’s obit – no surprise there.)
Management promoted this famous story as fair warning. Kick back before you kick, enjoy the ride – they’ve anticipated all your needs! – don’t ask unsettling questions. Admit one snake past the gatekeeper and before you know it you’ve got a snake pit. There are no rules in Paradise – you’re free as a bird – as long as you obey the rules. This God is no-kidding-around – and intrusive as all get-out. So what if Eve nibbles an apple not on the menu? Cut her some slack, can’t you, Big Guy, she’s not bothering anybody (except maybe Adam).
The dirty little secret about Paradise, which management does backflips to suppress, is it’s boring. All that faux bonhomie, all those golf carts, all those pink pants, it’s hard to catch a break from such perfection. You know why you’re here – just turn on Fox News to remind yourself how horrible and dark and dirty life is outside! – you’ve got all you need, sure, but not all you want somehow. It’s as if – I only whisper this – you’ve died and gone to heaven, only you’re still alive! Heaven is only heaven if you want to be there, not if you’ve fled there as the preferable alternative all things considered.
Adam and Eve’s post-Paradisial adventures – all nine hundred years – have not been transmitted to posterity. No doubt they were too busy coping to recount their tale: living takes work. Maybe they plopped to bed exhausted after a hard day of being, doubting, not knowing, wondering what next. We know they had kids – that’ll upset the applecart! – but management barely mentions them. Maybe, if they were lucky, later in life when they could enjoy the little furball, they got a dog. (I’d recommend a cockapoo.)
They suffered more – no two ways about it – but is suffering so bad? How else do we wake to the exquisite tragedy of existence? In Paradise, no one died – not that you noticed – no more than water dies when it vanishes into sand. One day was so much like another you scarcely marked their passage – or importance. Outside the gates you wept – for what hadn’t and might have been – and that so soon – oh! – you must depart. (Even nine hundred years didn’t feel like enough.)
Humanity may be divided into two (unequal) groups: the tumid and the timid. The tumid burst with longing for as much life as they can get, hurt be damned; the timid want as little. For the tumid the bitterness of life is sweet because it’s real.
Choose your side.