Nature

Dear Deer,

I'm re-reading Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, about the emptiness of human existence when work is taken over by machines. This weekend I'm feeling my existence is a bit empty too, as I find myself with nothing but blogging, posting photos on Flickr, and other online time-wasting to fill the hours. When I really think about it, there aren't many things that I do that produce real results in the real world. (Is there a difference in quality, somehow, between potatoes dug out of the earth, and websites? Making one is arguably more satisfying in a real-world, I-can-hold-it-in-my-hands sort of way, I think.)

And meanwhile, my cat housemates are laying around lazily, and I can't help but wonder if they're horribly bored. Sure, they might be sleepily content, happy to do nothing, but then again, they might be insanely bored, tired of doing nothing. No matter how much they play with any number of toys, they never get a meal as a result. No matter how many times they catch sight of something new and interesting while watching from our windows, they can't go explore it, smell it, fight with it, play with it. Human industry has made them as bored as I am, or vastly more bored, since at least I can fill my hours with various entertainments and meetings and tasks to be accomplished.

You, dear deer, must be more happy. You must be more fulfilled. Aren't you? There may be occasional desperation as you flee a predator or go hungry in the winter, but overall, is your life more satisfying? Does the life-long struggle for food and companionship and the health of your children give you purpose and meaning and satisfaction? Do you experience wonderment, wandering through beautiful glades you've never before seen? Or anticipation, coming over a hill overlooking deep, damp meadows of lush grass?

I can't help but think you never have to bother yourself with the Big Questions that plague us humans. I can't imagine a deer despairing over a general lack of direction, or a lack of self-confidence in her skills and awkwardness in her personal relationships, or pondering why she should try so hard with such oddly anti-climactic results.

A friend of mine once derided the film Waking Life for both being comprised of and inspiring philosophical musing. Why wonder and try to figure things out, he asked, when one could simply read the right books and acquire Meaning through the work of others? I remember finding that profoundly depressing, and yet I felt silly for being so excited by the ideas in the film, the draw of the metaphysical unknown.

Today I think of that musing as an end in itself, not simply an inefficient means. These searches give meaning, they make life lush. You wander the forests, living in the moment. Many of us humans have the forests figured out, and have to wander our brains, figuring those out instead. I try to have the confidence that our cat housemates have enough to think about (and enough toys to play with) to keep them occupied, but I worry that they're as bored as the humans in Player Piano, "sweating out Judgment Day."

Or maybe I'm just being paternalistic and culturally imperialist, assuming this and that about you and cats, dear deer. Maybe you're all just fine, and no one's bored; maybe you're all struggling day-in, day-out, with intense problem-solving. Or maybe you're all Zen masters, enjoying the Now. But I can't help but envy you, relatively unhindered by humans trying to improve upon nature.