by Gabby Woehr.
When considering the liquids one consumes in a day, there is one that stands alone as the ultimate beverage. Throughout generations, classes, and locations, citizens of the world have united under the banner of a holy liquid: milk. Milk is the most common drink, demonstrating its cultural and historical significance. The masses gather under a communal udder, lapping up the pure, healing power of lactose. Milk is not only a beverage, it is a cultural icon. Instant ramen, tea, and coffee all stem from it, as do flowers, rivers, and rain. It is the default item for television dining tables, commercials encouraging hydration, and thousands of serene portraits of nature. Simply put, milk is a transcendent cultural symbol whose ubiquity gives it power.
Humans have gravitated toward milk’s all-consuming enticement since we have existed alongside cows. However, we have not possessed the “milk gene” for that length of time. This gene helps humans process lactase, and its absence would create digestion problems as significant as milk itself. Milk is such a divine beverage that even an inability to metabolize it could not stop ancient tribes from its consumption. The reason for milk’s longevity is simple: it was a gift from God at the conception of the universe. According to Christian theology, God created milk on the third day, as if it were meant to sustain us. In the beginning, there was milk. Milk dripped on the same heat-scorned earth which Cain trod. Milk spilt on the altar Elijah prepared for the Lord. Milk is the connection between past and present, the bridge on which our ancestors meet us.
Consider this: drinking milk is a spiritual practice, one that connects us deeply with the historical and the holy. Milk poured out of the rock at the touch of Moses’ staff, it turned into wine in the hands of Jesus. God promised the Israelites “a land flowing with milk and honey”, the two ingredients necessary for human life. Humans can survive three days without milk, three days of agony spent in precious longing for dripping dairy. Milk is one of the few commonalities shared by every person to walk the earth. It is all-creating and all-sustaining. From milk comes the quenching of thirst, the thriving of plant life, and the continuation of health. While one may drink an alternate beverage such as juice or water, milk is the only liquid that fosters human life in a tangible way. Milk sits humans together at the existential dinner table, glasses full of the same, life-giving fluid. Its ability to connect humans to each other and a divine creator is unrivaled by any other substance.
But the question must be posed: why milk? Why, out of every liquid fit for human consumption, must milk be the one to support life? Why must it fill the oceans, crashing upon shore and churning sand into cereal? The answer is simple. At the core of milk’s ever-present might is the human longing to colonize the simplest of entities. From where do we obtain the majority of our milk? Cows. While bodies of milk abound upon the earth, humans have left the oceans for recreation and aquatic life. 71% of the earth’s surface is milk, but it is too easily accessible to be suitable for human needs. Man must assert control over even the most basic of creatures, hence we subjugate cows for our milk production demands. Cows cease producing milk after their young have matured, but we have created in them an unnatural propensity to be milked endlessly. This eternal flow of lactose suits two human desires–to live and to control. When considering the sum of humanity’s dominion, what creature do we truly humble ourselves for? We have harvested forests past sustainability, hunted the animals we once trembled in fear of, and conquered the nations whom we viewed as somehow inferior. Humans cannot even take humble standing before God, as we assume his role in our daily lives. We live as though we control our own fates, our own relationships, our own resources. We make decisions with the assumption that we can manipulate their outcomes, when in fact this is a false dominion. Control is an illusion, as we can no more change our destinies than we can change the orbit of the planets. We can no more tame our consequences than we can tame the rising and ebbing tides of milk.
Here the overcompensation of our invalidity is presented: we must subjugate for fear of becoming servants ourselves. If we seize control of an entity, the said entity can no longer seize control of us. We must be the aggressor to fend off our fear of being the victim. Thus, we steal milk from cows who would not create it if we did not force them to do so. This is our subtle subjugation of creatures with whom we used to coexist. Cows and humans were created on the same day, but humans have overtaken them. Therefore, drinking milk does not only connect us with a force larger than ourselves, it perfectly represents human nature.
At their core, humans plunder and destroy without remorse, and the cow is no exception. While milk was once an icon of purity and hope, it has become symbolic of man’s need to acquire increasingly more. We will not rest until cows have been drained of their milk supply, inevitably creating our own demise. Once cows have been milked dry, they will be unable to nurse their young. This will lead to the impossibility of obtaining more milk. As we further pollute the oceans, we destroy yet another source of life-giving dairy. Humans are deeply selfish, but what’s more, we are stupid. We have a seeming inability to use resources sustainably, which is why we will eventually deprive ourselves of potable milk. We will lie in our graves before we realize we have created them, satisfied with our domination over all creatures.
But what can be done to fight human nature? We cannot remedy our true condition; it seeps into our lives and sustains the core of our beings. However unflattering the egocentric image of humanity may be, it is unchangeable. Ultimately, we cannot alter the course humanity is taking toward its self-made demise. Perhaps acceptance of our homegrown extinction is the only remediation at this stage of the human journey.
A key component of life is realizing that existence and eternity are not the same. Everyone and everything ends; this is the humor of the universe, the law of entropy. As we live, we die, and we must come to terms with our ultimate insignificance in the world’s grand timeline. So what must we do in the meantime? It is possible that we must repent, beg forgiveness of our sins against the cows. We can kneel in front of them as if to gather milk, then offer a prayer to our unknown god begging for mercy. We can treat cows as our equals, ignore their utility for our health, and reform our ways of obtaining milk. However, it is altogether possible that our insignificance creates an allowance for error. Humans must be allowed to err, for if life is meaningless, then so is perfection. By nature, humanity cannot achieve divinity, and there is beauty found in muddling through this all-consuming life. All that is asked of us is adequacy—the capacity for trying to accept our unimportance, even if we never achieve it. While we gather up our ponderings about and grievances against the world we have been born into, we have one task at hand: remain alive.
And to remain alive?
We must drink milk.