Take a moment and sit with that quiet inside you. The one that sometimes whispers something is off, only to be pushed down so the day can keep moving. That whisper is the clue. Because the pattern we just glimpsed is not random. Have you ever sat outside in the sun, in the quiet, watching bees buzzing around or ants trailing in lines? I was doing that one day, just letting my mind wander.
I was contemplating a beehive. The hive is not just a structure the bees build. Those little insects come together into something bigger. An emergent superorganism, existing at a different level altogether. The bees do not know the hive as a whole. They follow simple instincts. Local signals. Yet the colony as a whole decides things, finds food, defends itself, and adapts to crises. It behaves like it has a mind of its own that none of the bees can see.
But what kind of mind? Does it show some emergent intelligence? Smarter than any single bee, perhaps. Yet without thinking the way we do. Without our sense of consciousness.
But it got me thinking. What if we are like the bees? Humans are social creatures too. Way more complicated than bees or ants. Our brains link through words, stories, traditions, and now all this digital hum. What if populations combine into a larger collective mind? A seemingly blind force with no centre.
If we are part of a superorganism like that, could it help make sense of things that seem to have poor answers? I’ve often wondered why obviously pathological personality types like narcissists and psychopaths keep emerging from the gene pool. Why wouldn’t evolution weed them out? Why does politics feel like an endless tug-of-war, pulling us in circles without real resolution except for the idea that those that came before were ignorant beasts? Why does our moral compass shift so wildly over a few years, and why do we try to deny it? What was monstrous yesterday becoming normal today and vice versa. Surely from the future, we are all monsters! Why do we repeat history's horrors, dressed only in new clothes, as if we learn nothing.
And God? If we are cells in a larger blind thing, what does that do to the idea of a central mind watching over us? A “divine plan”? This purpose from above too complex for us to see or understand but also at the same time totally believable?
Those questions linger. They sit there in the sun with you.
Maybe this force is blind and just moves around bumping into things. Like some kind of blind worm in the dark soil. No eyes, no plan, just persistence. Adjusting when it hits a wall. Keeping the whole catastrophe going somehow. As our imagination is only taking its very first glimpse here, maybe this grubby worm might evolve into something more sophisticated as we press on.
And think about the ants again. Their hill gets flooded or destroyed—everything swept away. Yet they do not panic or give up. They form living rafts with their own bodies to float the colony to safety. If the queen is lost, they raise a new one. Then they start building again. A new city, the same pattern, as if nothing had happened. No plan or memory of the flood. Just persistence! The colony endures, even when the old structure is gone.
What if the colony doesn't just get food? What if it raids weaker hives, enslaves other ants, swarms and destroys threats to persist? What if those pheromone trails sometimes loop the ants into endless death spirals, circling blindly till exhaustion claims them? We seem driven to do that too, before rationalising it away to our wonderful selves.
And those individual bees and ants — the workers, soldiers, drones, queens. What if our genome keeps throwing out "different" minds like that? Autism for intense focus, psychopathy for fearless decisions, narcissism for bold leadership, dyslexia for visual-spatial edge, OCD for vigilant checking — traits that don't always thrive individually but sometimes give the herd an edge in crises?
What would our version look like to something that could see it? Not the sprawling cities, advancing disposable tech or polluting litter. Those are just like the anthill, the trace left behind. The real superorganism is the vast web of our interconnected minds, ideas spreading like pheromone trails, culture humming unseen. Why don't we see more of it? Maybe evolution hides it behind a veil, so we keep playing our parts — acting like individuals, just like the bees and ants.
Is this what old stories like the Garden of Eden were getting at? That bite of knowledge lifting the veil on the machinery. That horrific twist away from simple innocence that you can never unsee.
Keep wondering and it starts to look like we are some kind of augmented ape. Hacked by evolution with a brain upgrade. Connected through what we think are our own minds. But really a bit like bees. Working away in our roles. Oblivious to the larger structure. Chasing resources, dominance, sex. Dressing those drives in stories of progress and purpose. To feel like we have risen above it all. We still behave like augmented chimps. Vicious when the herd smells weakness, quick to cull the slow or different so the pack keeps moving.
The stories fade. Generations rewrite them. Believe they are final. Have you ever caught yourself in that loop? The roar winning. The quiet fading. Yet deep down sensing this larger twist pulling the strings.
Maybe this is all just a dream under the sun. But once you muse on it, the questions keep coming. And the pattern starts to feel real.