This reminds me of something I saw years ago, it was like a variant of Gulliver's Travels.
There was this one bit where he finds this ghost town, and after some investigation, he discovers that they were so emotionally-driven, they were dancing around enjoying the sunlight so much, they forgot to eat and drink, and they all died.
Later he finds their opposite, a bunch of scientifically-minded highly-intelligent near-emotionless beings, one of which was looking at a cucumber under a microscope. The guy asks what the scientist is doing, and the scientist looks at him like he was at least 50 IQ points below his own and had just asked the stupidest thing ever, because it was so glaringly clear--to him--what he was doing.
A little more prying led to the scientist eventually responding "Is it not obvious? I'm trying to extract the sunlight from this cucumber."
This reminds me a little of the Greek creation myth.
First, the gods created men out of gold. But they did nothing but sit around and enjoy life. So the gods destroyed them and made men out of iron. But these men did nothing but work constantly. The gods destroyed them too, and finally made men out of flesh and bones - strong enough to work sometimes, but also able to appreciate the joys of the flesh sometimes.
This reminds me of something I saw years ago, it was like a variant of Gulliver's Travels.
There was this one bit where he finds this ghost town, and after some investigation, he discovers that they were so emotionally-driven, they were dancing around enjoying the sunlight so much, they forgot to eat and drink, and they all died.
Later he finds their opposite, a bunch of scientifically-minded highly-intelligent near-emotionless beings, one of which was looking at a cucumber under a microscope. The guy asks what the scientist is doing, and the scientist looks at him like he was at least 50 IQ points below his own and had just asked the stupidest thing ever, because it was so glaringly clear--to him--what he was doing.
A little more prying led to the scientist eventually responding "Is it not obvious? I'm trying to extract the sunlight from this cucumber."
EDIT: Well, what do you know. It WAS Gulliver's Travels.
This reminds me a little of the Greek creation myth.
First, the gods created men out of gold. But they did nothing but sit around and enjoy life. So the gods destroyed them and made men out of iron. But these men did nothing but work constantly. The gods destroyed them too, and finally made men out of flesh and bones - strong enough to work sometimes, but also able to appreciate the joys of the flesh sometimes.
Oh man have I delt with a lot of the microscope guy in my life.
That passage was deeply personal to me.