Messengers of the Small Truth

Growth is a human default mode. Every individual, every reproduced cell and in fact every selfish copy of our DNA, intends to proliferate. From an evolutionary perspective such a default mode made perfect sense in the year 4.000 BC when the world population of Homo Sapiens stood at a modest 8 million. As the population moves towards 8 billion in 2024, a genetic mentality change is needed. We must resist the zeros and ones that program our irrational love for growth or we’ll destroy our host planet.

Perhaps not surprisingly it is evolution itself that shows us a way out. The unlikely heroes of the growth resistence are the Larons, the achondroplasiacs, Homo Floresiensis, the Pygmies, and Meier-Gorlin dwarfs. Within their genes we find pieces of the puzzle towards a more balanced future. To understand these (r)evolutionary signs we need to overcome our prejudice towards the very small. Within the dominant structure of  ‘normal size’ any real insight into, and appreciation of, the potential of the small is made impossible by its encapsulation in pathology or entertainment. For many centuries, and still, the truth of the small people has been denied by defining them as either exotic, sick or funny. It is time to realise that they are actually evolutionary messengers of a possible and more sustainable future.