Reflection on a Monkey Meme: and Laughter and Sin

Something about an ape roasting you for having to pay for rent and groceries — to constantly labor away just to continue existing on this planet — is of course, hilarious. However, it also hits a little too close to home.

When I first saw this meme, a favorite Russian phrase of mine immediately came to mind: “и смех, и грех,” literally “and laughter and sin.” In essence, it’s an acknowledgement and appreciation of dark humor, of an entertaining but perhaps unfortunate reality. We’ll come back to this later.

I laid in bed thinking about this meme, and enjoyed pondering the unfairness of the whole setup. Monkeys get to swing around the treetops, eating fresh fruit and living happily up in the foliage and down on the damp rainforest floor; meanwhile, I have to grind and hustle most all day every day just to be able to put a roof over my head and buy the sustenance I need. In what universe is it just that I, a conscious and intelligent human being, should be condemned to more suffering than an ape?

I soon realized after a little more contemplation— as I’m sure you may have as well by now, dear reader — that I was being preposterous. How is it, exactly, that I’ve come to regard a life of swinging from vines and munching on flora as preferable to the grandeur and accomplishment of civilization? I sit here on my computer, in my heated home with a stocked pantry, and complain that I do not have the oh-so-enviable life of a destitute jungle primate.

Sure, the point could be taken that many aspects of life are over-commodified, or that decent living spaces are increasingly difficult to come by for many, but so what? Would I truly rather there be no commodities or decent living spaces at all? Would I truly prefer the life of a caveman, let alone a monkey? How absurd!

I may have to pay to live on this planet, but I’m paying for things that greatly improve my quality of life, no? Things that apes neither have access to nor the ability to fully comprehend or utilize. Sure, I must pay for my sustenance, but what about those luxuries I choose to pay for? How ungrateful I must be, to desire a state of nature as a man blessed by the fruits of human innovation and progress! So then where did it all go wrong?

See, that’s the question that remains scarcely-asked and even more scarcely-answered. If all these marvels of modern man are so great — if every important graph has the right trend line, and every data point reflects movement in the right direction, and every want that I could come up with continues to be quickly met by the innovative genius of some aspiring entrepreneur — then why do I care so little for any of it? Why do myself and so many others feel the greatest and most general of discontents?

It’s because the more we stray from our simian roots, the more we become aware of the cost and benefit of our Fall: indeed, it is awareness itself, awareness that life is both laughter and sin, “и смех, и грех.” Conscious awareness of the precariousness of our position here on Earth, of condemnation to death and suffering, is one hell of a price to pay for a dark laugh or two, but it is a necessary one. To be able to make light of our suffering and thrive in spite of it, to be able to envy a monkey while enjoying the marvels of modernity, to be able to joke about it and engage in self-reflection, is what separates us from them. There is a certain beauty to be found specifically in the tragic existence of humankind.

So even though I was taken aback and shoved into self-pitying contemplation by the imagined insult of a talking internet ape, it is precisely the oddness and implication of that reaction that I would use as a comeback to the beast, should I ever get the chance. I may pay to live on this planet in a way that is distinct and more tragic than any other creature, but it’s because my payment in suffering is also more dignified, and holy, and fruitful, and creative than any other. And it is worth it.

So fuck you monkey, I won’t be returning (even if I do take a little bit of advice now and again).