the lives of others

"Time is everything; Man is nothing."
---Karl Marx.

"Time is everything."
--little, darling R.

"Will there be a time when I'm grown up and understand things?" asked R.

"Inshallah," I replied.

"But what if I don't understand things?"

"Er...then you can write a blog!"

~~~

Took little R to the zoo. Despite the lovely lazy Sunday feel to it, the leafy shade, the slow meandering that reminds one of the importance of useless things, she wasn't mightily impressed. Perhaps the elephants and hippos were too big for her little eyes to take in; she seemed to gravitate to the smaller animals like the birds (but not too small: ants are not very interesting). Or perhaps some of the animals were just too weird (aren't all animals weird, though?). Camels, for instance. And the white lama had a very odd personality.

Or maybe it was that she didn't realize some of them were actually animals. The giant turtles hardly moved. She might have thought they were just very large stones.

But I really think it was this: animals are boring bastards. They actually don't do much. Now, I'm not saying I expect to see them playing cards, or playing some Bach, but just lazing in the sun all day like that. Dear me! You can see Protestantism has had no effect on them! The closed, opaque lives of others...

"But, but..." R said eagerly, "people look at me and probably say the same thing. And for all I know they probably look at you black sun and think the same: closed, lazy, an odd personality...need I go on?"

"Oh R, that's the last time I bring you to the zoo!"

"Yes, let's go back and read some Montaigne"

"We understand nothing of a dog's experience...they understand nothing of ours, when for example they watch us stare interminably at the pages of a book. Yet both states of consciousness share a certain quality: the 'zest' or 'tingle' which comes when one is completely absorbed in what one is doing. This tingle should enable us to recognise each other's similarity [and] in turn should lead to kindness."

(emphasis added by R)

---S. Bakewell, On Montaigne.