Fair is Fair
October 22nd, 2020
Starring: The Kid (10ish)
The gymnasium, mid Science fair. The Kid stands in front of an empty, dioramaless table. A small crowd stands in front, waiting:
THE KID
Hello, and welcome to my science fair.
I want to start by saying that I am the only kid here who did not receive help from my parents. Not out of neglect, but because I told them not to. You can also see I have no visual aid to accompany my experiment. This was also intentional.
I am not a science kid. I understand I’m not a fully developed human being, but I just know. No Nobels, proofs, or formulas will come from me.
But I have to do this, or I don’t go to middle school.
My hypothesis? That I could not do this project while still doing this project. Let me explain:
Last week, at the library, I found a book titled The Origin of Species. I tried to read it, but that was difficult, so I opted for an online summary, which helped a lot. From what I could get, this guy Charles Darwin figures out things evolve over time. That in response to a given environment or circumstance, organisms evolve in order to survive. The ones who evolve end up living. The ones who don’t, don’t. The big example was these finches who grew curved beaks so they could eat more food than non-curved beak finches, and the finches without the curve fell off the curve. And that, more or less, is why everything came to have everything. Survival.
And this doesn’t just go for physical attributes. Mental and emotional too. And this is happening all over the world, all the time, all at once.
So from my findings, I saw that the members of our species that are going to survive are the ones who adapt. The ones who are willing to challenge the conditions of now and focus on the conditions of the future. For me, that’s what this experiment was all about. If I declined to work on this project, what could I accomplish with all that extra time?
Well, I’ll tell you. In the time I saved, I co-founded a pop-up matcha stand in the high school parking lot, read 23 young-adult fantasy novels, and practiced trombone twice more often per week. This, I believe, is the evolution Darwin was referring to.
So, in conclusion, yes, I was able to do the assignment without doing it at all, priming myself for future survival, and proving Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Thank you for your time. I will now direct you to the next booth, where Mark has prepared the classic baking soda and vinegar volcano explosion.
…
Sorry if I just spoiled it.