These days, my Instagram feed is mostly cats and other animals, synthesizer/electronic musician stuff, and friends. The posts that really get to me are the ones with animals. In particular, the ones with animals looking very happy, or people rescuing animals that are hurt and are going to be euthanized, or befriending wild animals. It may sound overly sentimental because, well, it is, but those photos and videos tug at my cold, cold heart.
It hit me the other day: People could be like that all the time. We could be the best animal, the one that befriends all the other animals. The one they look to for comfort or shelter or food. We have that in us.
I would like to take this moment to stress that, no matter what it sounds like, I don’t partake of any chemical amusement aids beyond the odd drink once a month or so. Not even the relatively mild, almost-legal, and ubiquitous one. It’s not my thing. The key fact is that I have not partaken of anything at all recently. I’m just kinda wired like this.
That thought makes me sad. There’s no need for us as a species to be total assholes to pretty much every animal on this planet. I’m not saying “Everyone should drop everything, go live in a forest, and take care of possums,” but I’m not not saying it either. It seems a lot more fulfilling than most of what I organize my life around. Regardless of what the Big Blue Boy Scout says, right and wrong often exist on a spectrum. Most of what I do lands firmly in the gray zones, not so much “morally hazy” as “morally neutral.” Maybe it’s worse than that. I don’t know.
But taking care of creatures who can’t help themselves? That seems unequivocally good to me. Maybe I’m just feeling emotionally raw. The world’s a rough place and people don’t seem to be making it much better.
This possum is named Gandalf. All the possums that eat on our porch are named Gandalf.
OK, I have an idea for a kid’s activity:
- Get a bunch of small bones or bone-shaped objects. They can be plastic, wood, plaster, whatever. Various sizes and shapes. But, you want to make sure that you have multiple examples of the same shape. Let’s say you’ve got 4 kids doing the activity, you want four sets of bones.
- Find 4 boxes and fill them with sand. Put one set of bones in each box and mix the sand around so the bones are hidden.
- Get 4 sets of “tools” for the archaeological dig. A small comb, a brush, a little pan, etc.
- Bring in the kids and have them dig for the fossils. They can only use the tools you provided to retrieve the bones; using bare hands or sifting the box is no good.
- After X amount of time, each kid will have a similar, but probably not identical, set of bones. Their task is to assemble those fossils into what they think would be the skeleton of a creature.
- Bonus activity: They can draw what they think the creature looked like when it was alive!
- Have them explain why they arranged the bones to they did. What did they think the creature was like (could it fly? did it swim? was it a predator? of course it was a predator, kids love raptors!)?
Now, I’ll admit several things here: I have no clue if this sort of activity already exists, and I also have no clue if kids would find it fun or interesting. I think it would be fun and interesting, but you may already be aware that my wiring is all screwy and the things I think are fun and interesting might very well not be either.
Sometimes people delight me. I am a fan of Gerry Rafferty. I firmly believe that, on its own, “Baker Street” justifies 70s soft rock. I also believe that it justifies the existence of the saxophone in rock music. It is with great pleasure, then, that I share this from Paisley, Ireland:
This is how you celebrate…everything. The very existence of this video makes the world a fractionally better place to live. Why is there no celebration of this sort in Texas? Texas has music. Texas even has good music. Bob Wills, Willie, Jerry Jeff, Buddy Holly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Janis, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Boz Skaggs, Steve Miller, ZZ Top…I could go on. I mean, I couldn’t go on very far, but I could definitely go on. You get the idea.
There’s beautify in this world. Celebrate it. Lift it up. Share it. Remind people of it.