This is LUCA, our Last Universal Common Ancestor.
Everything alive on Earth
Came from this little thing.
Allegedly.
This is another ancient ancestor. It has no name.
It never wanted any credit. It just wanted oxygen.
But Luca had a whole bunch of descendants.
And some of them wanted more.
Eventually, one descendant wanted this thing inside it.
Not just erotically...
Endosymbiotically
And before long: Eukaryotic-ly.
A being went from cell to organelle.
And birthed the mighty mitochrondria.
Today we call this moment
2.4 billion years ago
The Great Invagination
Yes, technically this was phagocytosis but 'The Great Phagocytosis' never caught on for some weird reason.
From independence to interdependence.
From competition to coevolution.
It was revolutionary evolution.
Two became one.
So that one could become many.
Every eukaryotic cell
in every plant, animal, fungus, and bug
remembers this invagination
in the circular genome
of its mitochondrial DNA.
These genes might be 2.4 billion years old
But these curves haven't aged a day.
Ancestors that once fought for resources
Combine to produce electochemical potential
Flashing electric signals across neurons
Creating awareness and control at gargantuan scales.