Apr 30, 2021
Being The Animal
Imagine for one second you could be an animal. Which one would it be?
Wouldn’t it be lovely to be an animal from time to time? It would probably be creepy but certainly freeing. No? As humans, there are so many things to think about. (bills, tax, work, our kids, our friends, our wife, our husband, the world, politics, our boss, the future, the present, the Micro-Present, the nostalgic or hurtful past and countless other things.) It’s exhausting! Isn't it? It really is. Some say animals do not really have a conscience. Not sure if that is really true but anyway, they do think less than us and I think that is a blessing. Not overthinking is a cool thing to do. Do you know that overthinking can lead to death?
That’s why I sometimes think I’m an animal. I occasionally think I’m a dog. I wonder if it’s the coolest animal on the planet. Which one would you choose to be? I love how they wiggle their tail, how they are loyal to their owner, how they bark out of excitement, not think too much. They are really awesome! I even compared happiness to dogs.
Humans have to be less egocentric and more empathetic. And one great way of doing so, is by imagining you were someone else, and why not an animal? After-all, that is the title of the article, no?
But perhaps a dog is not the only animal you ought to imagine being. Maybe an octopus is good too. Octopuses are fascinating animals that can even swim underwater! I kid you not! They swim, they can walk, they have 6 or 8 hands or something like that, they can do this and that. It’s a great mollusque. Okay, I may be a little bit sarcastic and absurd in my texts. I do exaggerate and I want to apologise but that’s just the way I am. I can’t do anything about it. I’m sorry.
But you can become friends with octopuses, there was even a great documentary about it. I believe it was given a few prizes. Do not underestimate the friendship one can form with an animal. Do let the animal become the chief commander. Do get inspired by the Animal Kingdom.
Dolphins are good too, elephants also, birds, turtles, monkeys…. The list goes on and on, pure madness! It’s difficult to pick one and only one. So many to choose from. I wonder if the human race could exist without the animal kingdom?
I would like to believe that you never really know who you really are in your life and that is why we need other people. We are social creatures, in the end, we need that interaction. When you're a kid, you definitely do not have a clear sense of who you are, you are like an intellectual sponge!
So take from other people, mimic, take this and that, reject this and that, absorb absorb absorb and throw out the shit!
When I was a kid, (I still am, by the way, I haven’t grown up. Deep down, I am still a toddler) So anyway, when I was younger I took from all the animals that were in the national geographic documentaries. I absorbed the movie Fantasia. I absorbed absolutely everything!
I understood that elephants have great memory so I decided I’m going to be like an elephant when I grow up and have an out of the ordinary memory. I then saw how agile yet clumsy monkeys can be, so I said to myself, “later, I’m gonna be just like them.” Tigers also are very adventurous animals so…. You know what I’m about to say, no? So, Go For It Tiger! I will always have some animal spirit in me.
There was a time where we assigned souls to people, animals, natural events, and some inanimate objects explained Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus. So let’s do that again! Animals are decent people!
