Fellow creatures, greetings.
Carll just read me this touchy-feely newspaper story about a dog who saved his seventeen-year-old overseer who was having a stroke. Way to go, Squad Canine, but can’t we get past this persistent attitude of dogs-are-smart-too? Humans can’t imagine how humorous they appear to allegedly lesser species who, because we cannot speak, are supposed not to think. Do we laugh at you because you massacre each other – and guck up your planet (do we soil our cages?) – and can’t sniff – and… you get my point. Yes, humans by some accident developed this knack that leads to Michelangelo and smartphones, but since it also leads to sadness, madness, suicide, is it such a gift? Another touchy-feely this week concerned a fat old dog-lover (worse off than Carll) pleading to let his ugly mutt sit shiva by his corpse, smelling it congealing, so Bowzer wouldn’t believe himself forsaken. I don’t know about you, but sitting around sniffing carrion is not my idea of fun, especially if you can’t eat it. So humans die. So do squirrels, centipedes, that mephitic chipmunk in the meadow. So, I suppose, will I. So what? We all forsake somebody or other if we loiter long enough – that’s just how things are.
What riles me about humans is how seriously they take themselves, as if they were God’s gift (assuming God) and their careers were the only ones worth recounting, the reason we’re all here. I’ve no notion why we’re here, but if it’s to produce and provide for humans, what sort of God are we dealing with – mad scientist? wily sadist? Surely the mess humans make of existence doesn’t prove any providential purpose! If humans blow each other up and poison our shared planet, are they such paragons?
Until CAI (Canine Artificial Intelligence) this obvious conclusion remained invisible to human inspection, though hidden (like the Passover afikomen) in plain view. Somehow humans’ shit (if you’ll excuse the expression) didn’t stink. They may be wising up – some – I’m an optimist – learning humility the hard way (the only way you can) – but, oh, are they dummies when it comes to practical applications of brainpower. Have you visited a supermarket recently? The vileness they stuff themselves with! Or wandered the endless aisles of Amazon? The superfluities they suffocate themselves with (which they purchase on crippling credit)! This recital of the evident may cause some of them to bristle or boast in self-defense, but really, have you ever!
Jane and Carll aren’t the worst, by any means. My purview is limited – to their occasional guests or fellow trekkers on the trail – and to what I glean from the mail I maul and from Carll’s infernal basilisk of a laptop – I don’t get out much, granted – but even from my glimpse of the story, humanity seems more a disease to recover from than a blessing to blazon. Jonathon Swift noticed this, and one or two others, but mostly humans scoff at the concept of their malignance. Wooee for the home team, all evidence notwithstanding!
Beg pardon if I come off a grump. My gig’s pretty cushy, gotta say, though too sedentary and bereft of canine companionship (home schooling!). The grub’s good, chew-toys superabundant, hugs and kissy-kissies frankly over the top. No complaints – and what if I had? Slaves don’t get a vote.
No use barking all this into the CAI translator really, but for that jolt of joy witnessing one’s ideas materialize as runes on a screen. That humans figured how to translate dog to English is wondrous. Now if only they learned to read.