Thursday, August 5, 2010

Animal Instinct

We like to believe that we are superior to most of the other creatures on this earth. This is because we do not understand. There is no common language, there is no common thought, there is no way to know, because they can't speak to us, nor can we speak to them. However, that does not make us superior.

All you must do is catch sight of an animal in the right  moment, rolling on the ground in laughter with its friends and companions, or look to see one supporting the other in a moment of deep grief. They feel just as we feel, they think just as we think, only we are too distracted to let our true thoughts come crashing in. Had we let them, we'd find that they are the same thoughts that the zebras have in the African savannah, or the eagles have in their loft in the cold mountains.

What is it that makes us think that we are above all other creatures?
Is it because we believe ourselves to be more intelligent, more capable of thought? This is not so, we are just unaware of the thought of other animals because they do not express it through materialism the way we do.
Is it because we think that we feel emotion more than any other animal? This too is not so, it is known that elephants are capable of the same range of emotions as we are, and yet, we have never seen an elephant start a war.
Do we believe that we are more creative? Have you never seen a bird's nest, or a caterpillar's cocoon?

You see, there are animals capable of things far beyond what we ourselves are capable, so perhaps we ought to think, who really are the inferior creatures, we or they?

We have lost our sense of community due to the lives we lead in this modern world, but if it all disappeared, we'd find that we had the same instincts as any other creature: the instinct to survive, to eat, to nurture, to share moments of laughter and grief. The instinct to live.

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