Thursday, May 04, 2006

Do you ever look at a large group of people and see them as a bunch of animals for just an instant? Not in the sense that they're behaving like apes or anything, but just recognizing that they're just another mammal like every other furry thing that walks and crawls and that they look absolutely ridiculous all lined up at desks deep in concentration. At AP's today I saw hundreds of kids all scribbling away furiously on bits of paper and had to wonder, would a dog laugh at all of us for being obsessive about something so meaningless, would a hampster roll its eyes?

Animals should be running and rolling and eating and having sex. How in the world did evolution get from flagellum and photosynthesis to sitting in a chair all afternoon for college credit?


Anonymous
03:08:46 PM

6 comments:

Swales said...

OP, have you ever read the Italo Calvino short story "The Flash"? It asks the same question that you ask. You might be interested in it.

Anonymous said...

Actually...I think that I have, a few times. It provides very good entertainment when they're being particularly stupid, and otherwise just makes for some very interesting thoughts.

PChis said...

Actually, I sometimes do the opposite, I look at dogs or a hand or something and just wonder at how every little part that goes into makes it able to do what it's able to do. It's a very interesting feeling. I've always rather thought that dogs would scratch their heads (metaphorically of course) at things like tests as they don't understand them, rather than scoff at them.

Cats on the other hand...they really do despise us.

Anonymous said...

There was one day, walking outside the East Building, that I... I really saw everybody as animals. One a wolf, one a snake, one a sort of tropical bird. It was frightening, to say the least - my human world had been replaced by animals running, loping, creeping their way down the sidewalk towards me.

I know that it's the exact thing you weren't posting about, OP, but I had to share.

Anonymous said...

^ You wouldn't by any chance have a problem you may want to discuss with us and or your school counselor, would you?

Anonymous said...

Intrigue