On Leaving the Garden of Eden

The Edenic myth is about growing beyond and out of cultural comfort zones.  First, we had to deal with exposure as we forsook temperate climates.  "Adam and Eve" clothed themselves out of necessity, not modesty, as they learned how to survive harsher environments.  Modesty followed custom, not vice versa.

Then we learned how to produce and store enough food to last through longer and harsher winters; next we learned how to transport goods, including by sea and eventually air, to facilitate production, storage and distribution of essential goods.

What we learned in the second half of the 20th century is how to inhabit extremes of atmospheric pressure--from the vacuum of space to the breathing of compressed gases underwater.

Each of these advances takes us out of the "Garden of Eden" of our species' current comfort zone, always carrying with us the tools we learned to use in previous advances.

It makes me wonder where the next advance will take us....  Somewhere, no doubt, where outer space, inner space, and cyberspace converge.

And, of course, as individuals we are continually cast out of the Garden as we learn to be ashamed of our previous ignorance/innocence.

The serpent in the Garden is the urge to continually advance, to grow in knowledge, which eventuates in wisdom.  The forbidden fruit is knowledge itself, the fruit of our seemingly unwise desire to leave Eden in search of additional knowledge and greater wisdom.