I definitely see a totally random and unconnected pattern forming here.

Um...yeah.

My point tonight is that I'm glad we're human and not animals, but I'm REALLY glad we have animals in our world to have relationships with. This is really the core subject of a long, impassioned rant filled with a great deal of psycho- and philoso-babble, but the short form is that I really believe humans have lost more than they know by losing their animal nature.

Animals are, above all, honest. This doesn't mean they're not capable of some tremendous manipulation, but they don't lie TO THEMSELVES about what they are doing!

Just had another interesting, rather non-PC thought - I wonder what it would be like to separate two-legged hominids into "those who think" and "those who don't". The mere reflexive having of opinions does not constitute thinking. I was pondering the fact that most people *act* like animals - their priorities are power and pleasure. They eat, sleep, shit, fuck and fight, and that's about all - everything in their lives falls into one of those 5 categories. They don't actually *question* anything, *ponder* anything, or - gasp! - come up with anything resembling original self-generated ideas or perspectives.

Honestly, this is fine - as long as there's no pretense about it. However, these "humanimals" *believe* that they think, and that what they think is "as good as the next guy".

They're wrong...because they're not *thinking*. They're parroting, or having feelings that they put words on and call it thinking. I don't have any issues with feelings either - they're an important part of the human landscape - but they need to be properly identified as such, especially by the people having them! Those who simply take their own individual experiences and assume that everyone does (and should!) work the same, and that the entire world should be tailored to cater for the comfort and advancement of that person, are not *thinking*.

What if you had to qualify as human, by proving you can *think*? And if "human" and "humanimal" societies were separate in terms of laws and governance, if not social structure? Each type would rule itself, by whatever emerged out of the masses and the process. I think I'm correct in speculating that the "human" faction would be much smaller, but also that it would be much more libertarian in orientation. I could be wrong about that - I'd have to do more pondering and investigating - but subjectively I do find that people who *think* are bigger believers in personal responsibility and therefore need less "rules and regs" to create a functional society.

It's worth noting that the ability to *think* does not carry any other redeeming qualities with it. In my world, it's worth remembering that Karl Rove thinks. George H. Bush thinks, though George W. Bush does not. Sam Brownback thinks, though none of the conservative "talking heads" do - "reflexively opinionated" is as polite a description as I can think of for that job.

Most of these people frighten me, in terms of the differences in our beliefs and perspectives. There's no correlation that I can find between a functioning forebrain and compassion, maturity, integrity, or any other desirable characteristics.

Still, if I had to choose, I'd rather be locked up in a world with Sam Brownback than Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity (if it was Ann Coulter, though, I'd have to kill either her or myself). Obviously if I'm going to play "what if" I'd rather be locked up in a world with people who have a functioning forebrain AND compassion, maturity, and integrity, but from what I remember, it takes a minimum of 500 unrelated adult human beings to be a viable breeding population, so we'd die out pretty quickly.

*sigh*

OK, done ranting for tonight, but that was kinda fun.

I keep forgetting this is here

I tend to spend most of my time on LiveJournal but I set this up for a different reason and I ought not forget it's here.

In today's random trivia note, I find that I'm torn - I admire companies that list countries alphabetically and do not default the United States to the top. That being said, I find it extremely annoying to have to scroll through several hundred entries to find it at the bottom!

Since I'm not moving to Albania, Afghanistan, or any other "A" countries anytime soon, I guess I'm stuck with it.

This will work better, I think

Not sure why it's so hard to find the right title, but words do matter. This one will work.