I knew that my post about humans being the lowest creatures on Earth would create a bit of a controversy. And indeed it did because for the first time I received a couple of personal reactions, most of which were in a sense that animals are nonetheless inferior to humans or that having children is what we should do. There was even a lady stating that "humans have a soul whilst animals have not". I was inclined to ask her at what point in evolution humans received that soul then, but in the end didn't because surely also evolution is a doubtful theory and the truth is that women are only made of a man's spare parts. :-)
All jokes aside, I'd like to come back on the subject of animals because of their influence on autistic people. It's a subject that's quite popular on the various autism blogs and fora these days so I'd also like to give my contribution.
Personally, if I have to look deep down in my soul... (:-)) animals have always been my very best friends. Much more so than humans. The reasons for this are quite obvious:
- Animals only give true love and friendship, whereas human friendship's often fake or conditional. Perhaps this is yet another reason why humans are actually lower creatures than animals? Animals will never lie and always be devoted to you no matter what.
- Making friends with an animal is easy. You don't need to go through the whole social bullshit phase before you can consider it a friend. You don't even have to talk! Just give the animal your love and you'll get it back a thousandfold!
Now let's combine this piece of knowledge with autism. Why is it so difficult for autistic people to make friends? Because first of all we've got great difficulties communicating. As I already said, we don't understand words at all. We're completely unable to think in words. The only thing we can reason with are images and believe me, it takes an enormous effort trying to translate the things that are said to us into images and worse, trying to translate these images back into words which other people may understand. That's why we often say the wrong things, or nothing at all. We're under so much pressure to talk, that we'll say just about anything, hoping that it's well received by the other person. With the obvious result that the others will quickly regard us as "weirdos" and don't want to be friends with us at all, even though we've got so much friendship to offer.
With animals, things are completely different. The animal will automatically feel our friendship and give it back. Can you imagine what a relief this is to us, to have a friend that doesn't demand social or communicative skills from us? That's why animals are not only our closest friends, but they're also the only creatures that manage to calm us down when we're overly frustrated or angry because we can't cope with this busy world anymore. They just radiate their love to us and we can let go of all worries.
And then there is the honesty factor. Do you know what scares autistic people so much about social interaction, perhaps even more so than our fear of not being able to say the right things? Jokes, figurative speech, lies and all other forms of false or indirect communication. Since we don't understand words as such and have to translate them into images, we don't see any difference between a sentence being used "normally" and the same sentence being used as a joke or in a figurative way. And so we are usually the ones who don't understand the joke, think that it truly happened and once again we become the laughing stock of all the others. How terribly frustrating! I've been trying to teach myself the noble art of figurative speech and jokes for ages, with some success I might add, but still I often get it wrong, in spite of all my experience. Logical, because my "experience" just means that I try to remember certain phrases or jokes after I've discovered they were actually jokes and if the same thing is said to me a second time, chances are that I still remember and recognise the joke. Unless... the words are slightly altered. Or even worse! That this time it's not a joke but it's for real! And then I'm the only one laughing and all the rest are staring at me like "what's so funny about that?".
No, no, no... Thinking about communicating already makes my head spin. So please excuse me but I prefer my cats to humans because they'll remain my friends forever, even if I don't speak to them. And they don't use any figurative speech either. They just lay their heads on my chest and touch my face with one of their little paws in order to say "I love you". And I love them too... with all of my heart.
Do not look at nature with a zoom lens or a microscope, but with a wide-angel. House cats are not the only animals on earth. I do not believe that a crocodile can be a friend or to go swimming with a white shark. ! My daughter, for example, was cruelly scratched by her cat she wanted to get to the vet and she keeps permanent scarring. Sometimes wild or stray dogs maim or kill children or adults. Cruel beasts are numerous and it is normal because nature is cruel.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's difficult to become friends with a crocodile or shark. Animals remain what they are and to a crocodile, we'll always remain a snack. However, at least also the crocodile is being honest about it, isn't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteAll jokes aside, I think that it was clear that I was talking about domestic or farm animals, not about dangerous predators. What you wrote about your cat or certain dogs is also true. But... there's a very big "but" involved... First of all, you have to look at it from the cat's (or dog's) perspective. The cat was probably terrified because it didn't know what would happen (or perhaps it did and didn't fancy a trip to the vet). Its reaction was therefore only natural and it's a lesson to be learnt when dealing with animals. You have to understand that certain events may scare them and use proper precautions to avoid unpleasant consequences. How intelligent some animals may be, they don't always understand that you're only trying to help them. Also, just like humans, all animals've got different characters and some cats/dogs/whatever are more grumpy or even violent than others.
But the biggest "but" in this story is: there are no "bad" animals, there are only bad people. If a dog bites or even kills, it's not the dog's fault. It's ours! Because the dog was raised in a very improper way. Every dog expert will most certainly agree with me on this.
To conclude, I don't like the expression "cruel beasts" in this context because the "cruelest beasts" of them all... are we, because we bully, hurt, torture or kill for no reason at all.