Henry: What’s the use of thinking?

Carll: You think, don’t you?

H: No more than I have to. I don’t waste time on it. There’s no word for ponder in Dog. You, on the other paw…

C: Thinking is my sport. You eat, sleep, play; I do these too – but mostly I think. It’s what I like.

H: I’ve noticed. But is there any – how shall I put this? – practical utility in the activity? Or is it simply a pastime, like golf?

C: I hate golf.

H: You wouldn’t if you were any good at it.

C: Catty.

H: Dogged. Let’s move on.

(Pause. Or do you spell it “paws”?)

C: You’re asking whether thinking changes anything?

H: Roger. Is it salubrious, beneficial, transformative, therapeutic, any or all of the above? Or solely a sensual satisfaction, like a tummy rub? People who think think they’re doing something useful – like scientists, engineers, kibble bakers. The American, French, and Russian revolutions, they’ll argue, were driven by ideas. Philosophers since the old Greeks maintain their explorations are enlarging human awareness, which will improve mankind. But do humans get any better? I hear you read your stuff – yes, I can listen and sleep at the same time – and what is it mostly? Bellyaching, caterwauling (cats again) about the fatuity, cruelty, mendacity of mankind. Your species has been thinking for a few thousand years and this is where it’s gotten you? Dogs, while comparative newcomers to the mix of creatures (130,000 years vs. 300,000 for humans), are much better behaved and better liked. Do you measure intelligence by outcomes or by some cockamamie cooked-up standard, syllogistic consistency, say? I don’t think much about it, but when I do – and see you knuckling your skull and writhing with an h – I can’t help wondering, What’s wrong with humans? Or are you just a one-off, like a two-headed cow?

C: I’m not the only one. My readers…

H: My point exactly. All you thinkers think you’re doing something worthwhile. I’m asking you to justify that contention.

C: I’m not sure I can.

H: Bingo!

C: Or that I can’t. Bach, Shakespeare, Caravaggio, Mozart come to mind: I love these guys even more than you do fetid squirrel. I gobble them, can’t resist them, they’d make my tail wag if I had one. And I’m transcribing this conversation we’re having on my laptop and sharing it with a bunch of lovely folks. Otherwise, it’d be lost. All these phenomena are thought-enabled. And they gladden my heart, which would otherwise be glum.

H: And why glum? My heart’s never. Even in the dumps, I’m happy. You’ve thought yourself into wretchedness, that’s your problem. Remember that Jefferson quote you’re always trotting out? (This time it’s horses.) “How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.” You think to recover from the confusion you’ve brought on by thinking.

C: So we’d be better off not thinking? That’s what’s happening today in America. And the world is going to – if you don’t mind my saying so – the dogs.

H: We dogs desire our dinner, not the world.

C: We humans think – pardon my high horsing it – to forestall or ameliorate the adverse consequences of not thinking. And yes, you’re right, thoughts do not foment revolutions, fury does, but thoughts follow developments and try to make sense of them, so we can imagine we’ll be OK. Bach and the rest make sense of a senseless world. God did not curse canines with more brains than you need to get by. Count your lucky stars.

H: Time for a walk?