good, cause i think dogs are like an example of how humans should be: Ignorant, optimistic, silly, loyal, playful, friendly and protective.

I think sometimes that the emotional problems that come with remembering too much and the strength of human emotions takes too much away from the quality of human life. Someone asked me today how many people I know that are happy and I'd have to say that I don't know any genuinely happy people, which struck me as odd. Everyone seems to be so wrapped up in their unhappy memories, difficulties and worries that they miss out on the pleasures of the moment.The traumas of life seem to affect us so badly that we can fail to enjoy life at all.
The dog thats sat with me now has his bad days, when he's bored or hungry but in general his life seems to be happy and when something really good is going on he doesn't have those down moments with him, he is just lost in the moment able to enjoy it. I certainly think that all animals even insects are more aware than we are led to believe and from my experience on a psychic level, animals communicate in exactly the same way as human beings. We may look different and in our form we may experience life in differing ways, but spiritually we are the same.
The average rat uses all its natural abilities to its best affect but are human beings making best use of theirs.
I was also asked today if I've come across many animals that are impure in a natural sense and I haven't and then whether I've come across many people who are purely natural and no I haven't, possibly because the world we live in makes us unnatural. Maybe we don't use those powerful emotions we have in the right way, maybe we do dwell too much in memories and fears and mastering them might bring us up to the level of a rat.I certainly don't think that humans are capable of being better than rats but I do think that humans possess qualities that have more to do with the actual aim of life itself and they might well be the very qualities we end up misusing or not using enough.
Horned1

To error is human, to forgive is divine... I guess to me being human is being able to learn rights and wrongs; an ability to reason between action and reaction. Aren't many famous killers and such refered to as animals or predators, and those of us that aren't so beastial become their prey. Aren't we killed just as easily as any animal, and then there are cannibals.

Exactly. The thought does not occur to them...


Shadowborn

Difference is, the human may have cooked the steak, but didn't kill the cow with tooth and nail. If that were the case, it might be a different story of how enjoyable that steak might be.


Shadowborn

oh ok...i'm sorry i had no idea. i feel bad now.

humans=bad!!!!!

So, then to be human is to distinguish? Is that the conclusion we're coming to?

misanthrope n. One who hates or distrusts his fellow men. See also: Shadowborn


Shadowborn

a lot of farmers, hunters etc kills their dinners singlehandedly... and that makes them feel good, and strong, and male...theres a lot of pride among hunters. and most of them would testify that a meal tastes a lot better if you kill the meat yourself.

That is true, and I know more than a few of those people. I was speaking of the 'average' person who buys their steaks at the supermarket, or in a resteraunt. Would having to kill their own food for a change make them appreciate the steak more, or less?


Shadowborn

i think that would depend a lot on the person in question. i think a lot of people who now claims they could never kill any living things, if fowrced into a situation where they had to hunt to survive, would grow to appreciate the powertrip it probably is to inflict death.

yup yup...you're on the right track....what do you want to be?

If humans had to kill to survive suppose it might be justified but most people dont have to kill or cause the death of a conscious creature, they do it as an act of choice, and it is their choice at the end of the day.
I just wonder why when someone has a choice they choose to cause another creature a screaming agonizing death. Why dont people prefer compassion to murder.

The only thing that seperates us from the Animals on this Earth is our ability to Accesorize... errrr yeah... earrings and stuff...

You never cease to amaze.

oh my gosh! you are so right dyshade.

the vast majority of the ape-descended life forms on this planet are not human. if they were they would not be so unhappy burdening themselves with all sorts of made-up rules designed to keep them forever from achieving anything that would truly make them happy. In my observation of a fair number of "normal humans" they all believe in a large number of rules that prevent them from being happy. these rules can be based on religion, upbringing, or completely made up inside their own head. The really scary part is that most of them are totally unable to see this, that if they could only give up these harmful beliefs, they would be happy.

in my opinion one of the integral parts of being human is accepting responsibility for your own life and everything you do. this means your own happiness, actions, position, everything...
In the end you only have to answer to yourself.

people who abuse their minds by restricting themselves and others through the narrowness of their own imaginary beliefs of "how things should be" are the saddest ones of all.

Undead?... or were they ever alive. Thats the power of thoughtforms, play with it today and tomorrow its real.
Like the way you put it, animals generally accept life as it is, so many people seem to have as much difficulty accepting pleasure as they do accepting pain and its all in the mind, if only they could just learn to enjoy the best bits, that would be a start. Maybe if people had the morals of an animal they might be happier, once humans go past a certain level of morals the more miserable they are as human beings.

Precisely..