Clones

I’ve been thinking about clones for a few days. I don’t mean "cloning," as in making a new living thing that is an exact copy of another. Propagating plants by rooting cuttings is sometimes called cloning, but the new plants that grow will not be exact copies. That is not what I mean when I think about clones, but that’s a little closer.  Besides, bringing up the subject of cloning may bring on opinionated comments about the morality, benefits and risks, which I don’t really want to do.  No, I’ve been thinking about having a clone which is very much like a naturally born person, but not exactly the same. It is fantasy and perhaps science fiction.

My pondering of clones started with a friend’s Facebook post, in which she shared an article naming the top 10 worst career choices for college study, based upon potential salary, employability and opportunity considerations.  Her career choice had been anthropology, which was listed as the Number One worst career study choice.  I said to her that anthropology was one of the things I had listed for my clone to do.

I actually have a little jar that is labeled “Things for my clone to do”.  In it I have put small, folded slips of paper, each bearing a project name or a wished-for activity.  Some pieces of paper are larger and contain lists.  A number of the slips have projects I could do, not routine nor urgent, but which only wait for a stretch of time when I can do the project.  These are things like reupholster the couch, clean the crawlspace, repaint indoor window moldings, make candles, record my LP records to CDs, replace seat covers on the old oak chairs.  The other things are areas of interest that realistically I don’t have enough lifeline left in which to pursue, and because of that, they could be done by a clone of me. Those are subjects like computer programming and writing games for Apple computers, landscape design, anthropology, archeology, geology, photography and writing a novel. I imagine any adult who loves to read has wished to write a novel.

My idea of a clone of me would mean there would be another person who could do those things I don’t have time for, but doing so parallel to my current life and in such a way that I could be aware of the pleasures and benefits of doing them.  If I could ever work out a complete plot, that might be a good subject for MY novel. Last night I had a dream in which some people were drowned, and somehow these people were brought back to life as copies/clones of the ones who had died. It was a bit creepy, because these clones, although not disfigured, smelly and blood thirsty, were a little like zombies of the movies. Zombie stories do NOT appeal to me.

So anyway, my train of thought about clones rolled me onward to another “what if”. What if there were clones of some of the best people. The Dalai Lama, Mister Rogers and Bill Cosby came to my mind.  These real people bring messages of compassion, honesty and humor to the world and they have gone about doing good.  If there were more people like them, dispersed around the world into every culture, wouldn’t that bring hope for a better, more loving world society? Not meaning to be blasphemous in any way, I think clones of Jesus would be fantastic. To have people with his unselfish kindness, goodness, charisma and perfection in today’s world could bring about amazing reformation. Now that I think about it, perhaps that is what Christianity should be about, making clones of the goodness of Jesus who would live in ways that could make our world better.

I think I’ll add another slip of paper to my jar as a reminder:  “Dalai Lama, Mister Rogers, Bill Cosby, Jesus”.