Belly Fat

I have a secret to confess:  I sometimes can't resist watching programs on the religious channels--EWTN (Catholic) and TBN (Evangelical).

Why do I do this?  Because I am both horrified and fascinated by the madness that these mountebanks fabricate, dispense and, most astonishing of all, manage to "sell" (both literally and figuratively) to the credulous salvation-seekers of the world.

And there's some real catharsis (or, perhaps, kenosis) involved, too.  Watching one of these shows is what I call a "sauna" experience.  After an hour spent with Kenneth Copeland, for example, in his TBN sweatbox, I am prostrate, limp, withered up--completely emptied of all pride in human reason, all delight in human creativity, all optimism about human thought--what Bertrand Russell once called (silly git) the "chief glory of man."

Nothing, nothing, nothing to hang on to.  All just dehumanizing and dehydrating theological twaddle. And so embarrassing. Makes me want to jump into a cold river and not come out.

But still I subject myself to these sauna ordeals--because, as I said before, I am masochistically curious--and also because, after I emerge from the intellectual flogging, I find that very few other lunatics (Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter) have much effect on me. Like the moron who hit himself on the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he stopped. Thanks to the pain, I seem to acquire (at least temporarily) a kind of immunity to inanity.

So, let me tell you about today's metaphysical flagellation.  Rev. Copeland (who cain't pronounce "can't") was denouncing the moral and spiritual depravity which has descended, like a great plague, upon America and which has resulted--the wages of sin--in a national affliction (verily, verily of absolutely Biblical proportions) of...excessive belly fat.

Belly fat.  Yes, friends, there it is!  Did you know that fully 60% of all Americans have too much belly fat?  Gospel truth. And this fat is the direct result of perverted eating which, in turn, is the sinful behavior engendered by a nonexistent or improper relationship with Jesus Christ.  Don't you see?

It's really very simple.  Get right with Jesus and the fat will melt away!

That, at least, was the implication of the little presentation made by Rev. Copeland's bespectacled guest, a certain Dr. Don Colbert, author of a number of books, all apparently ghost-written by Jesus himself, and all entitled The Bible Cure for Something or Other (fill in the blank:  Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Yeast Infections, etc.).  Today, Dr. Don was holding forth about The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain.  

Though at first I was puzzled about why, exactly, "weight loss" needed to be cured, I soon realized that what the good doctor really meant was something like this:  "how to use Holy Scriptures in order to lose weight."

Of course, there was also an actual "diet" involved (i.e., lettuce, bran flakes, cottage cheese--nothing particularly unusual).  But, asserted the doctor, none of these conventional cures for belly fat would actually "work" unless the dieter had devoutly read the scriptures and, ipso facto / sine qua non, been born again into a right relationship with Jesus.

Positively ingenious scheme, Dr. Colbert!!!!  The would-be dieter buys your book (you win); then, he tries out the diet and either--a) it works (you win and so does he), or b) it doesn't work (his belly fat persists--but, and this is the best part, YOU STILL WIN.  Because the dieter's failure has nothing to do with you or with the diet--rather, the fault lies with the dieter himself--and, most especially, with the inadequacy of his spiritual development.)


This, then, appears to be the Belly Fat Doctrine:  the fatter you are, the more wicked you are.  Jesus loves thin people.  Satan rules the fatties.  So I guess Wallis Simpson had it right (albeit backwards).  You can never be too thin or (I'm sure Rev. Copeland and Dr. Colbert would agree) too rich!

P.S.  But what about the Rev. John Hagee?  Or the Rev. Rick Warren?  Aren't they both a little on the chubby side?  Just asking...

Matres et Patres

Last night, I had a dream about Alex Kroff,  my major professor when I was a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin.  He was, officially, the director of my Ph.D. thesis--the thesis that for several years I pretended (and even partially believed) I was writing.  I suspect that Alex knew, better than I, that Ken Kirkeby was not cut out to be either a scholar or a denizen of Academe.  But he never said anything.  He never got in my face about my lack of enthusiasm for second or third-rate nineteenth century French plays.  He never insisted (not, at least, very seriously) upon seeing concrete results of my supposed research.

OK.  It's true that Alex was a bit of a dilettante himself--believing, I have no doubt, that sophisticated eating mattered more in the "great scheme of things" than did pretentious or trendy thinking (he was a stickler for proper footnotes, though).  Still, I'm pretty sure that because he cared for me as a person, he was willing to cut me some slack as a student.  He trusted me to work though my own identity crisis, without any gratuitous needling or nagging on his part.

I loved him for that.  And I still feel a bit guilty that, somehow, I didn't turn out as he would probably have preferred.  In the fullness of time, I muddled through and did the best I could.  But perhaps my lingering awareness of the "road not taken" accounts for why I so frequently dream about Alex, just as I do about my mother, father and grandparents (all of whom I disappointed in some way or another).

"Uncle" Alex died unexpectedly in 1976, not coincidentally the year I definitively abandoned all doctoral pretensions.  Late that summer, at the absolute nadir of my life, I left the University of Wisconsin pour de bon  and moved, with neither money in pocket nor objective in mind, to Washington, D.C.  But on my last day in Madison, as I piled my pathetic belongings into the old Dodge Dart that my parents had given me, I still couldn't resist jamming into the trunk--behind the worn spare tire--a small box containing ALL of the "research" I had completed in eight full years of fraudulent travail. It was a very modest parcel indeed.

Guess what? I didn't throw out that box until twenty years later, just after I had made a commitment to teach English (not French) for the remaining ten years of my career.  Try to figure that one out.

Do I have regrets about all of this?  Yes, of course.  I cannot really be proud of the time I wasted and the love I squandered in my abortive attempt to avoid the truth about my nature, viz., that I am  not an intellectual and that I have no aptitude whatsoever for the mental discipline and systematic thinking (or nitpicking) of Academe.

But I am smart.  And as a result of my "lost" decade, I learned a number of things, the most pertinent of which--for the theme of this blog--is the vital, immeasurable, incomparable worth of TEACHERS.  The loss of Alex stunned me and the depth of my reaction to his death obliged me to examine my own life.  After all, I had often sought to avoid my major professor, indeed all professors--hoping thereby to evade my own sense of failure as a student.  But Alex's sudden departure, more than anything, made me acknowledge, with deep emotion, the great affection that I felt--not just for A.Y. Kroff--but indeed for every teacher I had ever had.

Teachers.  From the very beginning, I had always loved school (if not always my schoolmates).  In many ways, the classroom was more home than home. Alma mater.  And teachers, even the weak ones (including those, like Joe Rivers, whom I tormented), were truly my foster parents.  Almi patres (?)  Thanks to Alex--and, in particular, as a result of his precipitous and wrenching departure from my life, I realized that--though I would probably never be a biological father, I COULD be the next best thing:  an almus pater, a "nurturing father," a teacher.  That was the central "turn around moment" of my life.  I woke up and was born again. Hallelujah, amen.

Recently, many years after my personal Great Awakening, I was moved by a writer to the local paper whose letter paid tribute to the teachers who had formed him. Quoting Hippocrates, he affirmed what many of us feel:  the Mrs. Brundgardts, Miss Engs, Mr. Bianchis, Mrs. Kalmeses, Mrs. Peterses, Mr. Livingstons, Mr. Glausers, Mrs. Knops, Mr. Kroffs--these teachers have also been our parents, and in consequence, we owe them an enormous debt.  Here's what Hippocrates wrote:

"I swear... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture."

Well, I don't imagine many of my former students will soon be sharing their wealth with me. Nor would I expect it.  But I'm happy that I finally realized what I could be good at.  I couldn't be a scholar, like Alex.  But I could be a good teacher--also like Alex.

I miss you, Alex Yale Kroff. Though I don't even have a picture of you, you were my almus pater. And a model for what, I hope, I too became.  Où que tu sois, même si tu ne vis plus que dans mes rêves, je t'embrasse bien fort et bien affectueusement.  Merci mon très cher père.


P.S.  Please excuse any Latin expressions that I may have mangled in this post.  I loved my high school Latin class because reading about Caesar's Gallic Wars appealed to my incipient Francophilia.  I also thought togas and vomitoria were pretty cool.  But I never bothered to learn very much of the actual language.   

Bats in the Belfry

More and more I realize just how fragile--and unreliable--is human reason, my own included.

Is anything true?

I know that I have two trees in the yard--one a maple, the other a Japanese crab.  But what good is knowing THAT?

I don't know how to fix the economy, how to bring peace to Afghanistan, how to stop global warming.

Did Paul ignore the historical Jesus and fabricate Christianity out of his own mystery-cult-obsessed imagination?

Did Allah speak to Mohammed and through him dictate the Koran?

Should adulterers be stoned?  If a woman tries to defend her husband by poking another man in the balls, should she have her hand cut off (Deuteronomy 25)?

Would lowering taxes make big corporations employ more people?

Is affordable health care a "right" for everyone or merely a privilege for those who are more important in society?

Freedom.  Freedom.  Freedom.

I don't know what "freedom" means.  I worry that it has become a loaded word, full of emotion but detached from any definite referent in the real world.

Or, isn't it possible that freedom means simply being "disconnected"?

Do you want to go to war all around the world in order to disconnect everybody from everything?

My head spins.  I suppose I should turn off the television:  in the silence of my room, I would have to confront only my OWN idiocy--not the lunatic ravings of millions of others.

"No mosque at Ground Zero because Muslims don't believe that Jesus is Lord."  "God kills American soldiers because America tolerates fags." "Save America from Mexicans:  repeal the 14th Amendment."

Bats in the belfry.  Bats are blind, like my ideas.  They go bump in the dark.  My life is a tale told by an idiot. And then?...

One Hung Low

PART ONE:  Junk Science

I know exactly what you're thinking.  You're expecting me to say something both salacious and politically incorrect about human anatomy AND funny-sounding Asian names.  But you're wrong.  True to my vow to avoid paralipsis, I'm not even going to mention Long Duk Dong, the drunken and libidinous exchange student in Sixteen Candles (see http://oldagesticks.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-really-not-worth-mentioning.html) and I'm certainly not going to recount any "Confucious Say" adages.

But, as my title suggests, I am going to talk about testicles--human ones--and about how these ridiculous, wrinkly little guys "work."  As an introduction to my meditation, I thought we might look at a picture, fortunately in the public domain (and evidently donated by the proudly-groomed photographer himself) which I found on Wikimedia.  Though it pained me a bit to do so, I have cropped off all irrelevant, non-testicular subject matter.


Now, as you can see, one really DOES hang lower than the other.  This is normal, as I'm quite sure most of you know.

What isn't normal is the, well, unencumbered airiness of the pose.  I suppose that some might call this asymmetrical scrotum "overexposed," though that prudishness is exactly what worries me.

Because, I'm really afraid that the only hope for the survival of the human race is the liberation of human testicles from all entangling, restrictive, oppressive and, most especially, overheating garments.

We all remember 7th Grade Health, don't we?  Mr. Polus (or some other phys. ed. teacher)--aided by illustrations of bull testicles and Celsius thermometers--explained to us that the production of human sperm is a very tricky business.  The fastidious little spermatozoa just can't stand too much heat (or cold).  If their wee fuzzy houses aren't kept cooled to about 2 degrees Celsius below body temperature, they just wither up in prostration and refuse to do anything--no furious swimming, no competitive egg hunting, no frantic fertilizing.

And that, of course, is why BOTH of the family jewels hang low--even though one is usually lower than the other.  The scrotum needs COOL air in order to keep its delicate residents happy and in order to ensure that a plentiful supply of sperm will be available and willing to cooperate in reproduction.

In short, the very fate of humankind, hangs upon those manjigglies' ability to hang low enough and freely enough to maintain 35C temperatures.

Which brings us to global warming.

Today, the Weather Channel announced yet another day of record-setting temperatures in much of the U.S., especially in the South:  Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Birmingham.  We've had the hottest decade ever recorded and, most sources believe, 2010 will be the hottest year of this hottest decade (remember, strictly speaking, 2010 is the last year in the decade).

So, just think of all the prostrate sperm that's dying this summer!  And yet, young guys persist in running around in baggy boxer shorts protruding beneath even baggier below-the-knee cargo trunks.  And so, their poor cojones are swaddled up in literally yards of suffocating cloth.  Older dudes--the ones who might actually be interested in making babies--are even more delinquent:  they're literally smothering their sperm factories in a tight inner sheath of jockey briefs beneath a scratchy outer layer of wool (lawyers) or denim (farmers).

This is NOT GOOD.  As global temperatures rise, scrotums do their very best to hang ever lower--but let's face it:  with outside temperatures hovering around 40C, there is simply not enough hanging room inside any undies.  It's just too much of a stretch.  Hence my conclusion:  testicles are going to have to be entirely liberated, set free to flop and jiggle in the breeze.

You're just gonna have to let them all hang out, guys!  Like the well-ventilated pair in the photo. Otherwise, you're facing not just sweaty wedgies, but sterility as well.


PART TWO:  Defense of Nuts Act (or How to Save Humanity from the Threat of Global Warming)

Sartorially, if not fiscally, there IS a more conservative alternative, of course:  i.e, something could be done to arrest or reverse global warming.  Duh. Surely if we all put our thinking caps on, we could figure out some way to preserve the species and still keep those ridiculously asymmetrical testicles tucked modestly inside our shorts.

However, I'm not very optimistic about this possibility.  Despite the overwhelming evidence provided by their drooping ballsacks, most Republicans and many Democrats refuse adamantly to believe that the planet is getting too warm for sperm production.

In fact, they've never even thought of the problem in those terms, have they?

Instead, they've merely speculated about a) which cities might be inundated by rising sea waters, b) which states might become deserts, and, most importantly (c), who would have to PAY for any anti-warming measures.  And the politicos don't find ANY of these issues particularly compelling or, well, "sexy." Ergo, the Senate has simply abandoned its Global Warming Bill and, with it, any further attempt this session to regulate / limit greenhouse gas emissions.  The Republicans, says Fox News, will continue to oppose legislation based upon "junk science."

I love that expression:  "junk science."  What Fox means, of course, is that the learned look-alike journalists at Fox have concluded that, although global warming is a fact that even they cannot dispute, the notion that climate change is human-induced is, well, "junk." Just another socialist, communist, fascist lie intended to persuade innocent people to part with their money.  Well, maybe.  But, given my "meditation" in Part One of this blog, we might also employ the term "junk" as it is used in current slang:  penis and testicles.  Now, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hemmer, THAT'S quite a different kettle of "junk," isn't it?

Personally, I think the environmentalists could make their case more sexy and politically marketable if they adopted this slang definition of "junk."  Isn't it possible that they would get more votes, especially from senators representing those overheated but prudishly puritanical Southern states if, for instance, they couched their argument in the following terms?

Since the world IS getting warmer (as even Fox agrees), and since increasing temperatures will inevitably endanger human sperm production (as Mr. Polus and the Health teachers explained), the human race has only two good options for survival:

Option 1:  in order to ensure adequate cooling for sperm production, all males must immediately cease binding, supporting or in any way covering their genitals; testicles must be allowed to hang low and swing free.  In this option, religious or esthetic prudishness about concealing "private" parts cannot be tolerated.  Too bad, Puritans and Bible Belters--this erstwhile "indecency" is henceforth an act of moral duty.

OR

Option 2:  emissions of greenhouse gases must be strictly regulated and controlled by governments (even if that socialistic measure costs money), thereby preventing further rises in world temperatures and, ultimately, the extinction of homo sapiens.  In this option, men may continue to keep their "junk" hidden, since Big Government Programs rather than Mandatory Scrotal Exposure would guarantee a sperm-friendly environment.

Despite their fiscal objections, I'll bet those conservative Southern senators would feel morally obligated to support this second option. (And not just morally, but esthetically as well:   heck, they might not be prepared for all the costly and time-consuming "junk grooming" necessitated by Option 1.)

A possible campaign slogan for Option 2?  How about  "Preserve the Sanctity of our Testicles:  Vote for Emission-Control Legislation" ?  And if a catchy title were needed, they could even call the legislation something like the "Defense of Nuts Act"  (DONUTS).  Haha.  I couldn't resist.

Ce que dit la bouche d'ombre

I don't actually like Hugo's poem "Ce que dit la bouche d'ombre."  It's a well-engineered but overwrought vision of a kind of Happy Ending Apocalypse.  Full of grandiloquent "O"s, ecstatic exclamations and poetic dexterity of all sorts, this "show stopper" is intended to convey Hugo's devout belief--nay, his "prophetic" certainty--that fallen mankind will at last be resurrected, redeemed and restored by the power of love.  This optimistic assurance is, (as I literally translate the title line) "what the mouth of the shadow says/said." (Actually, the final word of the poem--uttered by an angel--is "commencement."  All the orchestrated hysteria, as in Ravel's Bolero, had been building up to that pre-ordained climax!  Cute.)

Don't get me wrong:  I like the idea that Good will eventually triumph and that the horns of evildoers will simply melt away in the fiery radiance of God's love.

But the very fact that Hugo goes on, and on, and on--piling metaphor upon metaphor upon rime riche upon rime riche--suggests that he's not as sure about all of this as he'd like to be.  He doth protest too much and, in the end, the effusive artifice of his poem makes me question his authenticity.  Is he posturing?  What does he really know?

Like the televangelist screamers who are trying so desperately, pounding their pulpits and their Bibles, to convince their listeners (and themselves?) that THEY are the only legitimate purveyors of truth.  As Robert Graves might ask:  is this genuine nakedness or merely artful nudity?

Can I hear an "amen" here?  AMEN.

But there are parts of Hugo's poem that appeal deeply to me--most especially, the very title.  I am fascinated by the expression "la bouche d'ombre."  How in the world can one translate that formula?  The mouth of the shadow?  The yawp of darkness?  The mouthpiece of the unknown?  The voice of the depths?  The language of intuition?

Well, whatever the translation, I'm inclined to believe that such a "bouche d'ombre" does, in fact, exist.  I can't help thinking about Levin's enlightenment--at the end of Anna Karenina.  After a lifetime of skepticism and doubt, after years of attempting to extract some shred of "meaning" from life, Levin discovers (with a joy and a simplicity that I find lacking in Hugo's overblown poem) that what he is seeking, he has always known--and not just he, but everyone else as well.

"Don't all philosophical theories do the same thing," Levin asks himself, "leading man by way of thought that is strange and unnatural to him to the knowledge of what he has long known and known so certainly that without it he would not even be able to live?  Is it not seen clearly in the development of each philosopher's theory that he knows beforehand (...) and only wants to return by a dubious mental path to what everybody knows"?

In short, when the voice of darkness talks to us (like a shadow's whisper), it says, not something uplifting like "commencement", but dumb stuff that we've always known-- "don't fret; it's OK; all is well."

And this, inevitably, reminds me of Emerson's "Self-Reliance."  And of Jesus' admonition to "consider the lilies."  We don't really need a Hugo (or a Pat Robertson) to be our "lighthouse" or our "seer" because la bouche d'ombre speaks to us all equally--in the ordinary but eloquent commonplaces I just mentioned.

And also, perhaps, in an ancient admonition too little heeded by Hugo, Tolstoy or myself (I'm not humble, am I?)--another commonplace that might just summarize the profoundest wisdom of humankind:  "For GOODNESS' sake, SHUT UP!"

"Good War" Nostalgia

Last night, Linda and I went to a play entitled The Daly News.  It's a musical revue loosely based upon the experiences of a single Wisconsin family (the Dalys) during World War II.  A paterfamilias in Milwaukee records  (and sings about) his wartime communications with four sons, all of whom are serving in some branch of the military in some theater of the war.  The play was given a standing ovation by an audience comprising about 200 sexagenarians and 5 youngsters of fewer than sixty years.  In other words, nearly everybody in the auditorium remembered a father (or perhaps an uncle) who had fought in, and told about, World War II.  And so, as these aging children of The Greatest Generation rose to their feet, it was more to honor their fathers than to applaud the quality of the production.

Because, truthfully, though the tunes were melodious and the actors talented, the play wasn't really particularly "good"--in a literary or artistic sense.  But it pleased the folks (often including me) for a couple of reasons, I guess:  1) because it reminded us of the fathers we are now mellow enough to love and regard as heroes; and 2) because it evoked in us a yearning for a communal experience--a great "cause" that would unite all Americans once again as a noble, purposeful, loving family.  In short, though we didn't nudge our neighbors and articulate our thought, as we sat there listening to those ditties about our dads eating Spam and getting shot at, we were secretly wishing (at least a bit) that WE, too, could have a nice little Good War.

We could all feel so "inspired" by a war in which OUR guys were clearly the GOOD guys.  And if we had to give up our nylons or our butter or even our lead pencils, what the heck?  We would be ennobled by the sacrifice.  It would be even warmer and fuzzier than donating canned goods to soup kitchens at Christmas.  Once again, we could fly the flag proudly, confident that all other "civilized" people would love and admire us.

Well, yes:  of course, there might be a price to pay.  Unlike the Dalys in the play, some Americans might have to die for the "cause" (whatever that might be--democracy, capitalism, Judeo-Christian values).

But we would all be so happy working together:  Rosie could rivet again; Uncle Sam could count on us again.  And we could all sing beautiful, sappy, melancholy songs about Apple Blossoms or Bluebirds.

To be fair, I should point out that The Daly News was also "about" something more than the national and familial solidarity generated by war.  It was also a slight but heart-tugging reminder that human beings, especially males, rarely allow themselves to feel deeply about (i.e., "love") other human beings except in times of crisis.  Males, especially fathers and sons, avoid such sissiness--unless a good war provides an excuse for bonding.

So in the end, last night's play--despite (or perhaps because of) all its facile sentimentality--left me feeling rather empty and gloomy.  Because even all the tuneful treacle couldn't disguise the underlying truth about men (and women, too, but mostly men):  we just HAVE to have wars.  Whether they are "good" or "bad," they seem to be a necessity for the self-actualization of the human male.  Couldn't we say that Vietnam and Iraq--though morally unjustifiable--were in some sense needed--at least by a great many of those who participated?

The nice thing about a "good" war, of course, is that--like World War II--it makes everyone feel noble, not only while it's going on but--best of all--long after it's over--when it still gets a standing ovation!

On the way home, we stopped at the Dairy Queen and had a chocolate malt.  Still more sugar, alas.  But afterwards I felt a lot less empty.

Out of the Box

We were discussing the passage in Candide in which Candide asks the dervish for an explanation of the evil in the world.  Just before the dervish slams the door in our poor boy's face, the whirling magus shouts, "What does it matter...whether there's good or evil?  When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he worry whether the mice on board are comfortable or not?"  I noticed that my best student was smiling and shaking her head.

I pounced.  "So you disagree, XX?"

"Not exactly, but I don't like the metaphor."

"Why not? Do you believe in a good God?" I asked.

 "No," my student replied, "not in a 'good' God, but in a god of some sort.  And 'ships' and 'mice' are much too substantial.  God has put us in this unimaginably large box--the universe--and occasionally he watches us.  Sometimes he fiddles around with us, for his amusement or just to see what might  happen."

"So, can we influence him in some way--in order to get him to be nice to us as opposed to other creatures?"

"Nah" she laughed.  "We're much too tiny and insignificant.  God doesn't really have any emotional attachment to us--and by the way, there are lots of other life-forms on other planets in this box.  God can't even see us except through a very powerful microscope. We're a kind of science project for God."

"Well, isn't your belief just another version of 18th Century deism?" I continued.

"Maybe.  But didn't the deists believe that God had created some rules that would always apply--natural laws?  I don't think that the God who set up this box had any rules at all in mind.  He was just messing around with a bunch of stuff--and threw it all together (Big Bang).  It's possible, actually, that his experiment has got a little out of hand. You know--expanding universe, space/time continuum.  He may not have foreseen that and he might not know quite what to do with it, but I guess he continues to find it entertaining and basically harmless."

"In your view, then, what significance does this god have for human beings?" I was beginning to get exasperated.

"No significance, really.  There's a remote chance that Earth might randomly show up under his microscope.  And, in such a scenario, if the collective behavior of Earthlings seems in  any way "remarkable" or "interesting," there's an even more remote chance that he might jiggle things up a bit.  But basically, we're just in this alone."

"Should human beings be trying to accomplish anything collectively or individually?  Should we have some sort of common goal?"  The great existential question, at last.

She paused. "Well, it seems impossible, but I think we should do our best to devise a way to get out of the box.  Outside the box, we would be a little bit like God, wouldn't we?"

"Hmm." I replied. "But isn't it likely that we couldn't survive outside the box's environment?  And how can part of an experiment 'get out of' the experiment?"

"Dunno," she admitted.  "Well, I suppose the only other alternative is to work together with other Earthlings to try to transform Earth into something so 'remarkable' or 'interesting' that it might attract God's attention and, potentially, his curious 'messing around.'"

"But what if that 'messing around' made things worse rather than better for us?" I fretted.

"Sounds like you're a Republican.  Are you?" she laughed.

Dunno.