What I've Been Reading

The most common relationship we have with animals is that eat them. This is followed by wearing animals, experimenting on them, and trading them for profit. Most animals abuse occurs not by rogue killers, violent spouses, or drug gangs but by industry and government. Research labs, fur farms, hunting ranches, animal trades, puppy mills, factory farms. These institutionalized forms of violence are more treacherous than any other kind because they have become normalized. By eating animals, experimenting on them, and wearing them, we have embedded the practice of violence into our everyday routines, With our tax dollars, our purchases, and our appetites, we have told our governments and businesses to go ahead and hurt animals. We'll just look the other way.  

Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies by Aysha Akhtar.

Thank goodness for writing this book Aysha! What I felt for decades and couldn't articulate coherently; she did all that and more in this splendid prose. Be prepared for an emotional roller coaster ride and if you don't feel anything then please do read Antonio Damasio's book Descartes Error first. The most profound and fundamental piece of brutality done by most humans but yet we hardly think leave alone speak against it.

• I am a scientist, but many scientist have long wrongly believed that only humans are conscious and can feel anything. That belief is unscientific. It is also an excuse for humans to abuse the non-humans among us. There is far too much of this.
• Anthropologist Brain Fagan described in his book, The Intimate Bond, that "our urge to make connection with fellow creatures is so powerful that it takes a lot to override it. If indeed this urge is so strong, do we lose something when we ignore it? Do we lose something of ourselves? Perhaps most importantly when do recognize our kinship with animals, what do we gain?
• We laugh together and cry alone. Grief is even lonelier when an animal dies because it's less valued that grief over the death of another human. Sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists have been slow to appreciate the impact of loos of an animal. An animal's death can cause poor sleep, missed days from work, significant distress, and depression. Among those who lose animals they deeply love, the extent of their grief is similar to that of those mourning the death of a cherished person.
• Sylvester nurtured me in ways that no one else could. Animals remind us that world is larger than us. They can teach us to look beyond racism, poverty, and cruelty in our lives - to step out of our daily struggles and see the beauty that surrounds us.
• The animals force the suffers to shift their focus away from themselves and their demons and attend to the animals needs.
• How animals are with animals gives us insight into their moral character. As early as 1699, John Locke advised giving children animals to care for so that they would "be accustomed from their cradles to be tender to all sensible creatures."
• "Manipulation, Domination, Control," wrote FBI profiler John E. Douglas., "These are the three watchwords of violent serial offenders."
• "This is normal". Throughout history, these three words championed willful ignorance. These three words excused discrimination. These three words fueled dominion over the powerless. And these three words tricked me into accepting Sylvester's abuse and mine. It's hard to recognize violence when it is seen as ordinary.
• We are slowly acknowledging animals as their own, unique selves. We are starting to recognize animals not as what, but as who.
• "I'm sorry," I whisper to them. "I'm so sorry".
• Since that day I often wondered why this woman would spend so much of her time caring for homeless animals when she herself is homeless.
• When we categorize, we polarize. How many times have we followed the 'us versus them' mentality to justify violence against another. At its most extreme, bias for the "us" group leads dehumanization of other people. Dehumanization has produced some of the darkest chapters in human history. In almost all cases, people have been devalued by being compared with animals. Portraying the "out group" as animal-like and less capable of emotions and thought render them less deserving of compassion.
• People have started to learn that pigs can be pessimistic or optimistic, cows show excitement when they learn something new, chickens share and tell one another when there is food, monkey help one another give birth, and rats enjoy being tickled. Confronted with this knowledge, we are forced to devise ever more tortuous mental contortions. 
• Our truth about animals are a creation of language, We have divided animals into separate categories, broken then down into parts, and reduced them into abstractions. All so that we can ease our conscience. Does it really work?
• To repurpose a phrase from Carl Sagan, we are made from the same stuff. With animals, we share far more than we don't share. 
• I think about Tom Perry's words. How did he know? I am sad. I'm sad for the animals whose lives will never be their own. I'm sad for Herbert who feels trapped in a grim business. I'm sad for lean who believes in this twisted relationship with animals. I'sad for me to have witnessed cruelty. I'm sad for the whole damned world. 
• We naturally inclined to connect with animals and yet we continually act against this inclination. When we go against our natural empathy for animals and inflict violence on them, either individually or systemically, we open ourselves to all forms of violence. And as our understanding of who animals are continues to evolve., so too does our empathy. We suffer when animals suffer. 
• Every time I've come out of a depressive episode, I felt as though I crawled through a gauntlet. Worries, fears, sorrows, and doubts throw their best at me. But I scrabble to the other side, bruised yet feeling a little stronger, a little more powerful. I survived. 
• Time stilled. And in that hush, fawn and man were the same. 
• Without empathy for mother cows mourning the loss of their children. Renee might never had conviction to open a sanctuary. 
• Stop it. It's amazing the power two little words can have. To me, they said I would longer doubt my self-worth. No longer obey another's rules. No longer assume the answers others give me. To Talup, they said I would no longer keep quiet. Two words changed my life. They were the hardest things I had ever said, but they set me free. 
• We go to great lengths to separate ourselves from other animals. We tell ourselves animals don't laugh (rats do), don't get pessimistic (pigs do), don't use tools (crows do), don't understand time (scrub jays do), don't do math (chickens do), don't trick others (squirrels do), don't feel empathy (mice do), don't pass on culture (chimpanzees do), don't show interest in their dead (elephants do), don't console each other (voles do), don't use language (prairie dogs probably do), and don't love. Seriously? If we are honest, we will admit that what we say about animals says more about us than the animals. 

When we are at our most vulnerable - at a time when speech fails us - our friendships with animals prove to be so healing precisely because human language is not needed.

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I quickly realized that the only way to be happy as a human was to spend all your time in the company of non-humans.