You've probably don't recognize the name of the movie, "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo". It was a Sergio Leone movie that came out in 1967 starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef.

Ah, I can see the light coming on in a lot of heads out there, and some of you are even humming the haunting music of the theme song. Here in the USA, it was known as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

I ran across the IMDb listing for that movie when I googled to find out who said that funny quote that starts out, "There are two kinds of people in the world". The answer is Robert Benchley. He said the two kinds are people who divide people into two kinds, and people who don't.

Ropes and Shovels

In the movie, Tuco (Eli Wallach) says, "There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting" and Blondie (Clint Eastwood) says, "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."

It's been a long time since 1966, and my memory fails me, but I think Blondie was telling the other guy that he needed to dig his own grave. All I really remember was that everybody was trying to kill everybody else. There really were no good people, only bad people doing ugly things.

Mitochondria

What brings this to mind is thinking about mitochondria. It's easy enough to think about mitochondria during a blizzard. The mitochondria is a speck in our cells that acts as the furnace of the cells. It makes the difference between warm-blooded species and cold-blooded species.

Cold-blooded species have to seek out warm environments to survive; warm-blooded species, on the other hand, throw off excess body heat. It costs more to keep the pipes from freezing in an empty school on a snow day than to heat the school on regular winter day, because each kid throws off about 100 watts of excess heat. That goes a long way towards heating the building.

The mitochondria isn't really part of us; it's a separate species, if you think about it. It has its own DNA, and it reproduces by fission rather than sexually. Your mitochondria should be identical to your mother's, because there's no mitochondria in sperm, only in eggs, and it's by tracking mutations in mitochondria that we can track ancient migrations of people over the continents.

The Editorial "We"

Mark Twain said that only "kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms" have the right to call themselves "we", but if you think about mitochondria, we're all plural beings.

And because of mitochondrial DNA, we know that human life started in Africa, and that there are basically seven families of mankind outside that continent. No, the seven families don't match up with common racial characteristics very well. We're not sure how many families might exist if we include Africans as well. The mDNA there hasn't been sampled very well, but leaving Africa was a big jump for mankind, because the only way to walk out involves crossing a rather nasty desert, and it's apparently only happened seven times.

But if we consider mitochondria to be part of us - easy enough, as most of us think of ourselves as individuals, not colonies - then there really are seven kinds of people.

Blizzards And Jerks

I've also been thinking a lot about jerks. A blizzard brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others, and by gosh, I've seen a lot of evidence of both this week. And tonight, on television, I saw an ad for an insurance company where a guy holds an elevator - already filled with guys - so that a woman can get on as well.

The insurance company implied that holding the elevator was doing the right thing, but when you hold the elevator for one person, you're also holding the other eight people in the elevator hostage. Similarly, if you slow down to let someone into your line of traffic, you're inconveniencing all the people behind you in traffic. The insurance company says that's the right thing to do. I sometimes let someone in, and sometimes I don't, but I feel guilty no matter which I do, because I don't believe there's a clear-cut right and wrong.

Now, to meander a little more before getting down to brass tacks, consider the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord Thy God. That pretty much says that there are multiple gods, of which only one matters. Moses climbed the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, so obviously, it's the god of Moses. Does that mean it's the god of all mankind? Perhaps - but tonight, I am of a mood to think that the answer is no.

How Many Gods?

In the Old Testament, we learn that Job was plagued by God as the result of a disagreement between God and the Devil. The Bible indicates that the Devil is only an angel versus God which is God, but it seems reasonable to assume that God and the Devil and all other gods are angels. If there are seven families of mankind, perhaps there are seven Gods, each with a population on this orb.

Or not. It could be that there are as many gods as there are people, and we each have our own personal god. But tonight, I'm conjecturing that there are seven of them.

And in that case, life on earth may be like a game of Evony, or Sid Meier's Civilization, or a game of Monopoly. It's not only Job who is being toyed with, but all of us.

Checking My Sources

I can't confess that I've talked about this at great length with my God. I've talked before with God about the possibility that my God is not the God of Moses, the one called Yahweh or Jehovah. As a result, I'm pretty sure that circumcision was unnecessary for me, and keeping kosher is irrelevant. It's not clear that the Ten Commandments are mandates either, but it was pretty obvious that my God thought they were fairly well crafted. And, God said, not particularly difficult to follow.

Who am I to argue with God? It supposedly says in the Koran that if a woman calls a man to her bed, and he does not come, God will be angry. I asked about that one, too, and God suggested that the woman will be angry, and it's not a good idea to make women angry, something I'd already learned.

HIPPA and the Almighty

There seems to be something HIPPA-ish about my conversations with my God. Just as my doctor won't discuss other patients with me, even members of my own family if they aren't present, my God doesn't want to discuss other people, even whether we share the same God. Ethics can be a bitch when you're curious, can't it?

But for the last few days, I've been playing with the idea that we're all a big simulation, a Sim City if you like, or an electric train layout, if you prefer to avoid references to Evony or Civilization. We're each to glorify our own God in the way that our God prefers. And if little Susie loves her Raggedy Ann doll, and little Debbie loves her Barbie, nobody thinks that is strange.

So maybe these jerks aren't evil, wicked, mean and bad and nasty, as they seem to be. Maybe they just have a different God, and they're glorifying their God in the way that their God prefers. There's no need to hate them for acting in the way that's perfectly normal for them.

On the other hand, since I am to glorify my God in the manner that my God prefers, I don't have to go out of my way to make it easier for them to be a jerk.

Kneecapping Your Way To Heaven

Sometimes, I wish my God were more into kneecapping jerks. It certainly sounds like a rewarding hobby. But mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do and die. Or not. Doctors have told me twice that I should have died, but for some inexplicible reason, I survived. Maybe I will live forever. I guess if I want that to come true, I best not enter into any freelance kneecapping projects.

It sure would be fun, though.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
blizzards - Clint Eastwood - Eli Wallach - evil - Job - kneecapping - Lee Van Cleef - mDNA - mitochondria - Nark Twain - Robert Benchley - Sergio Leone - seven daughters of eve - tapeworms - Ten Commandments