Day 167
I write from Calgary today, home of a bustling population, beautiful warm weather and endless skies, and what until this afternoon I thought was my LSAT test location. Unfortunately the gods handed down a little bit of bad luck when the LSAT people changed the test location 10 days ago to Edmonton, and failed to notify me. So there I stood, outside the only empty room in a busy university 200 miles from where I was supposed to be.
Why did they fail to notify me of this change, I do not know. I do know I was the only person who was not notified, because I was the only one there.
And in what you may call an act of rebellion, I decided it was a good idea to spend the remainder of the daylight up at Lake Louise experiencing everything that is the opposite of bureaucracy, of logic and analysis, of fluorescent lit classrooms and steel chairs and no. 2 pencils. To experience some of the natural world in a state relatively unchanged from its state thousands, even millions of years ago is humbling, and it offers a certain angle of perspective that instantly evaporates into dust the pillars of success, wealth, and the so-called management of time we define ourselves by. The water was wonderfully icy cold.
A conversation arose in the car on the way up between myself and my uncle, an MA student at U of C and part-time country music bass player. The subject was deer hunting, something my uncle does occasionally and I have never done. My uncle offered the point of view that there is a certain thrill, a primal rush, that accompanies a successful hunt, that we agreed may underlie not only the hunt, but also sport, and perhaps the desire for sex. The deer almost surely enjoys a fate infinitely less painful than any other it would eventually incur at the hands of mother nature's wolves or starvation.
My offering, while diametrically opposed, overlapped in ways with this view. When I see a deer or any other creature, my overwhelming desire is to do nothing, to be there as an unobserved observer and to watch the creature live as though I were never there. The very last thing I want to do is end its life.
And by this same token, if I see a creature suffering, I do not feel the desire or inclination to help. I'd rather, again, see it's course run independently of my or any other human's contact. A girlfriend once told me a story about being on an African safari, and assisting a wild baby wildebeast, lost, back to its herd, in the presence of nearby predators. I derided her for that decision, insisting the morally right thing to do would be to let the small and innocent creature die between sharp teeth.
In this disagreement between myself and my uncle, I ask you, is humaneness as cut and dry as we fancy it to be? Can it ever be quantified?
Why did they fail to notify me of this change, I do not know. I do know I was the only person who was not notified, because I was the only one there.
And in what you may call an act of rebellion, I decided it was a good idea to spend the remainder of the daylight up at Lake Louise experiencing everything that is the opposite of bureaucracy, of logic and analysis, of fluorescent lit classrooms and steel chairs and no. 2 pencils. To experience some of the natural world in a state relatively unchanged from its state thousands, even millions of years ago is humbling, and it offers a certain angle of perspective that instantly evaporates into dust the pillars of success, wealth, and the so-called management of time we define ourselves by. The water was wonderfully icy cold.
A conversation arose in the car on the way up between myself and my uncle, an MA student at U of C and part-time country music bass player. The subject was deer hunting, something my uncle does occasionally and I have never done. My uncle offered the point of view that there is a certain thrill, a primal rush, that accompanies a successful hunt, that we agreed may underlie not only the hunt, but also sport, and perhaps the desire for sex. The deer almost surely enjoys a fate infinitely less painful than any other it would eventually incur at the hands of mother nature's wolves or starvation.
My offering, while diametrically opposed, overlapped in ways with this view. When I see a deer or any other creature, my overwhelming desire is to do nothing, to be there as an unobserved observer and to watch the creature live as though I were never there. The very last thing I want to do is end its life.
And by this same token, if I see a creature suffering, I do not feel the desire or inclination to help. I'd rather, again, see it's course run independently of my or any other human's contact. A girlfriend once told me a story about being on an African safari, and assisting a wild baby wildebeast, lost, back to its herd, in the presence of nearby predators. I derided her for that decision, insisting the morally right thing to do would be to let the small and innocent creature die between sharp teeth.
In this disagreement between myself and my uncle, I ask you, is humaneness as cut and dry as we fancy it to be? Can it ever be quantified?
Comments
At least you took the opportunity to reflect and immerse yourself in the wonder of nature.
Beers. Tomorrow night. On me.