The Riddle of the Sphinxs and Organism-Environment Interaction

The Riddle of the Sphinx

          On the context of Organism – Environment Interaction

       The message of the riddle of the sphinx relative to the idea that human species is heading towards its sunset.

       The riddle of the sphinx is a question about “creature in earth that walks with four feet at sunrise, two at noon and three at sunset”.

       I first encountered this riddle when I was ten years old; I found a

(Source: http%3a//cghub.com/images/view/58514/)    book in my Uncle’s library, “Mga Kwentong Griyego”, and this one of the featured stories with Oedipus as the main character. He was able to pass the road when he answered the riddle of the sphinx. His answer is “man”. My second encounter with the riddle is with our discussion in World literature during my second year in college about “Greek Mythology”. My third encounter is with my other ecology lower in previous year with Dr.AV Rotor of UST. In fact he has an article about this in his book “In Living with Nature”. And then in this course Bio 260, when we tackled about organisms’ interaction with its environment, I remember this Riddle of the Sphinx.

       This riddle was based on the life cycle of man wherein during infancy man uses his two knees and two arms or hands in crawling, during adulthood man uses only his two feet and during old age he needs a cane as his third foot to support his two feet in walking.

         I would like to view the last part of the human life cycle in two ways.

         First – it is negative sign especially if you are still young and you are already using cane in walking and you looked older than your age.  This only means that man could not cope up with the kind of environment he is having right now, the kind of air he is   breathing, the kind of water he is drinking and the kind of food he is taking.

         Why all this things happened, these are all brought about by the different human activities that affect our environment. The illegal logging that caused flash floods, the use of chemical pesticides that contaminate our foods with toxic substances and many of the anthropogenic behaviors that harm the air, water and soil that surrounds man.

          My second view is positive, because for me when a person reached that age or already walking with the use of cane due to old age, it means that he was able to survive inspite of the different catastrophes happening in our mother earth.  Man was able to develop defense mechanisms so that he will not be affected by different pollutions in the environment.  That is how man interacts with his environment, an adaptation, acclimatization, acclimation processes.

          However, accordingly man or human species is leading towards its sunset.  We cannot prevent this from happening because this is a natural phenomenon wherein everything has an end.  However, if this phenomenon come to us at an early stage, that is a big question.

          Hence, man should do something to preserve and lengthen his life. We should not be settled with by adapting to or adjusting to what is happening to us. We must preserve and protect the environment and eventually man and other organisms shall be saved also.

          The riddle of the sphinx only reminds us that man should complete its life cycle and wait for the sunset at the right time, not in the morning of life, not even at noon but hopefully man could survive until midnight of his life.