WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, HUH?

Blog number sixty-six                                                 24 Dec. 2006

I was watching a nature show where this group of lions had made a kill close to a Watusi village late at night. Two men came out of the village, attracted by the noise, to see if the lions had killed any of their cattle. While the men were still quite a ways off, the lions slunk away from their feast.

I was struck by the fact that a pride of lions surrendered their kill like that. Usually, they will fight until it seemed to be too dangerous, and never, against any other animal, will they give it up without at least a show of bravado. But here, "humans coming, let's beat feet."

I got, from another nature program, that the Watusi used to, maybe still do, would prove their manhood by hunting out a lion with only shields and spears. When they came upon one, they would surround it and one guy would take his spear and shield and approach the lion until it charged him and he would fall on his back with the shield over him, stabbing the lion as it came upon him. At this point, all would attack, killing the lion.

It seems really strange to me that of all the dangerous animals in Africa, lions are more afraid of humans that anything else.

House cats love to watch people. I have seen them take what they see and repeat it to their advantage, like standing on top of each other three deep in order to hit a door latch to open it and come in where it's warm.

I once watched my cat watching me reading and it came to me that the cat could not, even in it's wildest imagination, guess what I was doing. It had no frame of reference. None.

No other animal but man has hair or fur situated as do we. All animals except humans have other animals that look and behave somewhat like them. Foxes have dogs, lions have house cats, seals have walruses. And even with these animals, there are different species of foxes, dogs, tigers, whales, different varieties. But humans are unique. There is no other animal that approaches what we are. No other animal comes close do being able to do what we have done.

Dogs, wolves, cats, bury their scat. Dogs, wolves, cats, kill and eat uncooked meat. No animal except man reads or writes. No animal except man creates civilizations and histories. No animal except man has consciously flung themselves into space or built a vehicle out of dirt that carries him at speeds exceeding traveling sound.

In a very real way, humans are alone here. There is nothing with which we can compare ourselves.

We are unique.

No one on earth knows how to make a chain saw from dirt. Yet they exist.

What's that all about?