It's a World Wild Web

“They are able to have a more stable social structure that prevents them from being aggressive….” The American woman’s sound-byte on TV partly caught my attention as I coaxed water from the fountain in the public dining hall. Ah, US elections: even in the Philippines, or especially in the Philippines, people are interested to know what issues the Democrats and the Republicans talk about. I thought, “Why should we be so concerned about social or political issues in the US when we choke from those of our own here?” The dilemma tossed in my mind as the glass filled up. Looking up at the TV screen, I then saw this gigantic elephant and its tiny baby enveloped in the swirling African savannah dust. Elephants on Discovery Channel! They were talking about elephants and not Americans! Not even Republicans!

Is it possible that people have reached that point in human development that we have somehow applied our own social dynamics to those of animals? Or is it merely an evolutionary extension (pun definitely intended) of our dependence or adherence (following Darwin’s thinking) to our origins in the lower life-forms? That what we are simply could not be detached from what we were before when we were supposedly eons away from even contemplating such complex ideas as elections or electronics, things which are even beyond ordinary human, let alone animal, comprehension.

Or perhaps, we condescendingly try to force upon animals a logical pattern of behavior akin to that of humans. I don’t really know for sure how zoologists think but in recent times, the various academic disciplines have crossed barriers in the effort to attain a more holistic view of life.

The socio-biologists, for instance, claim that humans are biological organisms. Others argue that “No, at the beginning of the day, we are an evolving animal species, but by the end of the day, we're something else again. We're human beings…. (T)he Yanomami Indians of South America is one more instance of that fierce philosophical fight over the nature of human nature. Are those head-hunting Yanomami warriors acting out a universal human urge to dominate or die? And are we doomed, if that's so, to tribalism, sexism, racism, ethnic cleansing and war without end?” <Christopher Lydon at www.wbur.org>

Perhaps some people study animals or prefer dealing with them as pets or as virtual friends to better understand themselves. I have a friend who, before she married a bit late in her life, had so many pet cats and after marrying even adopted stray cats. Sure, animals need care as much as humans or husbands do. They need, like humans too, understanding and to be understood in emotional, social and scientific terms. (Or do we merely reflect ourselves upon them? Seeing something that’s not really there?) How much effort one puts into such a pursuit depends on one’s passion for it. And how much we gain from it determines the level of happiness we attain in life.

In a sense, the world has become less and less of a wild, unexplored and untamed world. Even society has become less and less exciting and less useful for so many people who have gone on to explore other worlds such as the virtual realm of the Internet and that of outer space. (Still for so many, TV remains the window to a visually-managed wilderness whose ways seem to awaken our own primal instincts.) Whereas before people went to Africa or the Amazon River to hunt wild game or explore nature, today the excitement dwells in the inner reaches of the human psyche or the human mind. In this still uncompleted chart, many spend money, time and effort to unravel the secrets that may one day bring the Utopian era of harmony, peace and understanding. But is that really possible on this Earth?

For now, we study animals and ourselves, propose hypotheses and theories, seek out social and political leaders and scour books and the Internet in search of conclusive answers. In search of the perfect knowledge that will set us finally free from the wildness within and around us. All because we have lost that perfect affinity we once had with one another and even with animals in a long lost place we call Paradise.

[Top photo: My foster-sister, Jodi Hottel, at 4 and her pet cat, Blackie (from a Kodachrome slide taken in 1980, Texas); Photo above: At the butterfly farm in Club John Hay, Baguio City]