I am an animal 
all thought begins and ends with this understanding 
my evolutionary advantage is imagination
I create to survive 
at times I have imagined myself more than an animal 
 capable of wonderful things 
and awful things 
I imagine there is a better way to do wonderful things
I am an animal

	I am an animal. I am an end result of millions of years of evolution. My sweat glands, my opposable thumbs, and my large brain are each part of what makes me well-suited to exploit my environment and dominate other animals. I know what I am and how I work best and so I proceed with confidence in explaining myself. I am not a doctor of any science and my credentials do not allow me to be an expert on anything, except myself. 
	As an animal I am driven to eat, to reproduce and to find a safe place to eat, reproduce and rest. I affirm that under all of the layers of ideas, on how and why I do these things, that I am driven like any other animal. This is a simple-sounding conclusion but believing in this premise puts me at odds with many other sweating, thumb-wielding, large-brained animals. In fact they may say I am wrong in calling them animals. I am not an expert on any of these others, that are seemingly like me, any more than I am an expert on insects, fish, birds and other mammals. I will relay my observations on other animals with confidence in my ability to observe and deduce but I will reserve my most confident tone for how the animal that is me works. No footnotes will be necessary and no doctors of anything need pay any attention unless they have an interest in this particular animal. I do not fear repeating well-worn ideas because I only seek to be understood and to understand. I am confident that I am an expert at explaining myself to myself. 
	I  accept that what drives me comes from inherited desires, desires to meet certain needs. The brain I have has evolved over millions of years not only to manage my bodily functions but to make me seek nourishment and to attempt to reproduce. My brain’s thought patterns have evolved over my life time to make these things seem more complicated than the simple acts of satisfying desires. Over the course of my life I have been taught that I am more than an animal. This has not only come from religious teachings but from secular philosophy. They have all taught me that I am under some obligation to make more of myself than a desire-fulfilling upright mammal. This of course, as any true expert on me will attest, is wrong. As an animal I am under no obligation to do anything but remedy the hungers that exist in me. There is no reprimand at the end of a wild animal’s life for spending each day in pursuit of the next meal and the next mate. Why then do I worry about how I am perceived in pursuing my next meal, a mate, and a period of secure rest? Many experts would fill in many answers here about why I am obligated to pursue these things in a certain manner and I would guess that they would be wrong. They would be wrong as soon as they said that I had to adhere to their ideas because I am somehow innately different from other animals. I will not begin from a foundation that has no proof for me. I will begin where I am sure of myself.  I am an animal.
	This understanding is so simple and  allows me to answer so many questions about myself that I have to wonder why it seems so odd to have as a guidepost. I am certain many have also come to this understanding and I have to wonder if  their next thought was: what if everyone acted like an animal? What if everyone believed they had no more moral responsibility than a dog? And this stopped these thinkers from this line of inquiry. Is this how to arrive at answers, rejecting an idea because if it is true the consequences might be horrific? I do not believe so but I believe this has happened all through the history of philosophy, psychology, political science and kitchen table arguments. As an animal I have no obligations to believe in right or wrong sex or a right or wrong way of getting nourishment. If I am attracted to another I try to have sex with the other, if I am hungry I try to eat something. However, as the animal I have become I have been taught how I should get things that I want. I am leashed. There are rules that I have been trained to follow. I have to recognize that this mentality has been formed by the society I live in and by my place in that society, not because it had to be but just because it was formed and seems to work for much of the time. These rules were made long before I was born and most of them are good rules. What if I were an animal that had a habit of rubbing my genitalia on strangers? I should not need to hear, “What is wrong with him?”; I instead should hear, “He has not been trained properly”. This is how I would judge any animal that I would see doing this. I would say that this animal was not taught how to suppress his animal desires in order to fit into this particular circumstance, “bad dog”. This simplifies many ideas of individual treatment. I would be treated for inappropriate behavior in a particular circumstance not for sexual deviance. I would not have to work backwards. I would not hear, “let’s see why you are such a degenerate, how have you become this monster”, but instead would hear, “you need to suppress your animal desires so that you can live in this society.” The person offering this advice could offer ideas on how to become trained. That person may even have ideas on why the training was never accomplished to begin with but this would all come down to me having to say, “I want to be in this human animal society so please train me properly” or “I like how I am, deal with me”.  This needs to be more than just an exercise in behavioral psychology, more than tasering me every time I think about rubbing my genitals on a stranger or giving me a biscuit when I sit quietly in the corner. There is a binding here. There is an agreement to be part of a human society and to abide by its rules. I am an active participant who is willing to suppress animal instincts but, and this is most important for me, will not pretend like my animal instincts do not or should not exist.
	This simple understanding of mine is only strengthened by science’s advancing knowledge about genes and how the brain works. There are animals that can not be easily trained or perhaps trained at all but this does not disprove my understanding. A genetic predisposition to be more violent than the average animal, a chemical imbalance that causes some extremeness, would only mean that this had to be addressed as part of the training/treatment. To go to one of the farthest ends of this scale and recognize that some brains are working physiologically in a way that makes it difficult to put limits on behavior is no different than saying that an individual must deal with the ramifications of any disease; and it  has been my observation that mental illness is exacerbated when an individual alines animal desires, or misconceptions about reality, with a notion of evil. If I believe that I am evil or that what I desire is evil then this takes on a power all its own. The terms good and evil have a sense of magic about them, an unnaturalness. If I believe that good and evil are universal, objective terms and my desires pull me to act in an “evil” way then what hope is there for me outside of the world of magic? By believing that I am an animal dealing with instinctual desires I can see through the layers of traditions and seek simpler answers. By thinking this way therapy is not rendered useless nor are society’s rules now impotent. Believing that I am an animal dealing with desires merely changes the focus. For me it makes treatment much more palatable. Thinking this way I am within the realm of my animal nature not in some netherworld of magic. If I can accept that I am behaving like an animal and that I can be taught/treated to control this behavior so I can be part of society, then successful habilitation is more likely for me. 
	I am sure there are animals before me who have made these kinds of statements; reasoning individuals that have stressed that moral beliefs are relative, subjective. I know there are thinkers who say that there are some beliefs we must be born with and that those beliefs are universal. I know that I was not born with any notion of an evil or good way to get food or satisfy sexual desires. I know that I learned how to wait my turn. I know that there are times in my life when I would have done great physical harm to another and only stopped myself because I had been taught that it was wrong and I feared the consequences of such action in my standing with human society. I know that for animals there is no universal moral understanding. I know that I respect the laws and rules of the society around me because I want to continue to live in this society. I know that many who hear these sorts of statements are appalled at the pathways that are opened with this type of thinking. They believe that an all-powerful something is the best source for the rules that keep us from stealing each other’s food and spouses and bashing each other when angry; a something that can not be questioned. I understand this way of thinking and why some believe it is necessary but I state that ultimately it is not true to an animal. 
	For me to be convinced that there is more to my life than choosing when and where to limit my animal instincts I must call out to the world of magic. I am using the term magic to describe more than a belief in a supreme being or in religious dogma. I am using the term regarding any belief that tells me I am somehow more than an animal. As an animal it is not evil to kill another animal, human or not. This bothers individuals who have no religious beliefs as much as the most fervent believer of any of the major religions. There is nothing in nature that says that particular animals need to be good to each other. I know why I am good to others. I am good to others because it makes me feel good. I was taught that this is what good people do. I was taught to be a good person. I am an animal properly trained to live in my society. When a scientist proves to me that there is some gene that predisposes me to help others survive I know that this is evolution at work. I know that this gene was once a mutation and that it has survived because it works. It is no more magic than the gene that predisposes me to be anxious when I am in unfamiliar surroundings. 
	Skeptics of my statement that I am nothing more than an animal come from all sides and all belief systems. They do not bow to my expertise on me, they can not. Faith in their special place in the world makes them right and they are made right by faith in their special place in the world. I know that I am an animal and an animal I know that I am. We can exist together. Myself and the believers in the magic of a supreme being, myself and the believers of magic in nature can exist together. We can do this if we all believe in the practicality of abiding by a set of rules. These are rules aimed at maximizing tolerance for individuals. As an expert on me I know that this is how it has always been and should always be. I know that the rules are refined over time, sometimes to accommodate magical beliefs and sometimes because magical beliefs have been shed. I understand this and I will fight to change rules but abide by rules as I do so. This animal has been leashed, by parents and teachers originally, but now I am leashed because it is how I choose to be. This is true peace of mind. 

						2

	This brain of mine, my mind and I do believe they are the same thing, is difficult to explain yet simple for me to understand. I know my mind. When I take the time to look for the roots of my thoughts I am always lead to the primary desires that I have as an animal: eating, mating, resting. When I break down each individual thought pattern to explain how I got from: “hunger! food!” to: “I don’t want to be hungry but I must earn money for food in a way that is fulfilling for me on a psychological level, because only then can I show who I am by putting my values first and what I am paid second but still get, as often as possible, but not so often it is unhealthy, a nice piece of steak and good whiskey to feed myself”; this is when it gets difficult. My desires, my basic needs, what drives me as an animal are these primary instincts: to eat, to mate, to rest. These are the basis of my thinking and I have found a way to complicate all of them. Before I even get to some explanation of how I think I feel compelled to deal with the idea of mind, to deal with the idea that I am somehow more than patterns of thought from an organ, the brain. I understand why I have invented ways to explain this voice in my head, to explain the separateness that I can feel from my body. It is a consequence of my ability to imagine.      
	I have decided that the rudiments of my imagination began in response to the basic desires, those feelings that something must be satisfied. I will give as an example the feeling of hunger, a feeling I can share with every animal on the planet. When I first thought about ways to satisfy my hunger my imagination kicked in. As one of the slower animals in the world and proportionally weakest animals I had to be inventive. The thoughts started to pile up and turned simple instinctual desires into layers of imagined alternatives. I believe that thinking, the act of giving context to feelings, felt alien. An otherness developed countering my animal instincts. I needed to take charge of the created chaos from my imagination. So I turned again to imagination and I imagined an avatar to organize, to shepherd the many runs of thought associated with simple desires. This avatar, this voice I call my mind. While I rationally believe my brain and my mind are the same thing it is easiest for me to give them separate realms. The brain is the organ. It is the well of basic desires and sub-conscious machinations that keeps me breathing and walking without thinking about every muscle movement. The mind is the conversation in my head. It is the discourse that takes place while I try to make decisions. The brain acts and reacts. The mind considers actions and reactions. The brain works in the here-and-now and the feeling of the moment. The mind brings the past and the future. It brings definitions to every word running through my thoughts while trying to control feelings and the here-and-now. 
	I find it easiest to explain the complication of my instincts and desires by thinking of this process like binary code. As queasy as it makes me to keep associating myself with the world of computers, and  even if neurologists and IT experts are left bent over in fits of laughter, it gives me a framework upon which to build. Thinking of it this way makes sense to me. I imagine that the very first thought I had as a newborn was a 0 and the next thought was a 1 and the next thought I had that was related to the 0 thought was an 01 and the next thought I had that was related to the 1 thought was 10 and so on. I imagine that, after months of my mother’s body supplying me with oxygen and sustenance, the first thought I had when disconnected was: “not satisfied”. This “not satisfied”, this 0, persisted until I took my first breath, “satisfied”, this 1. From this point on all things would be measured against these feelings of wanting and being content. Fortunately the taking in air part was pre-programmed. I did not know this until after the first breath but from that point on all would be measured in terms of being satisfied or not: being hungry or not, being tired or not, eventually being sexually aroused or not; and out of all of this would grow anxiety and security. Only the very first need was met regularly with little effort on my part. The only time I would think about breath again would be if it weren’t there and thankfully this was a rare occurrence, though admittedly the most anxiety-inducing of all the needs when it was not met. I would imagine that something exciting which was not getting breath eventually had to take in so much nuanced thought that it was a 010110111011110 etcetera; an amalgam of so many satisfying things with references to wanting that it was already getting too hard to follow the sequence. For me this is how the animal was lost. The feeling of basic desires and satisfying them was lost in how creatively I could fulfill my desires and rationalize why I was doing it that way.  
	With so many factors complicating basic desires it can seem impossible to maintain a sense of the here-and-now. I believe this is what wild animals have always with them, the here-and-know. It is all they know. Their thoughts are what our thoughts came from, feelings. They have  feelings of hunger, feelings of safety, they are never tangled with the many lines of thought of past feelings of hunger and safety. They are never tangled with concerns of future feelings of hunger and safety and thoughts of how other animals are dealing with all of this. Even when a wild animal recognizes the smell of a man and avoids an area I believe it is reacting to a smell and a feeling. I don’t believe it is picturing a particular man and remembering having a rock thrown at it’s hind quarters as it ran away and feeling sickened at its cowardice and wondering what other wild animals think of it and perhaps how to hide this reality.
	Of course I know this is all just invented discourse. I have not discovered the inner workings of the mind of a wild animal. I have not discovered the exact way I complicated simple desires as a child into the web of thoughts they are now. I have invented an explanation for myself. This is sometimes a beneficial thing that I do and sometimes the most damaging thing that I do when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world. I make up explanations of how I have come to be the amalgam of thoughts that I am now. I sometimes forget that under all of it is an animal wanting to satisfy basic needs and I make myself into a demigod or a raving idiot along the way.
	My imagination lets me create; it lets me invent. I need facts to discover but I do not need them to invent. I discover when I think about how the world actually works not how I imagine it works. No matter how strongly I am moved to invent explanations of why things are the way they are I must always know the difference between inventing and discovering. I am talking about times when I invent an explanation for something that perplexes me. I worry most about the inventions that I bring into being to explain why I do what I do or why the world is the way it is without any more proof than my gut feeling or what is called common sense. There is nothing wrong with this, it has been a mainstay of human development, but facts can not be invented. I should always be clear to point out when I am inventing and when I am discovering. Invention can lead to discovery, a hypothesis can be proved with facts, but I should always be clear about my place in this process.   
	I must admit that I long to create rather than discover.  I must understand that when I start inventing ways that things work and convincing others that I have discovered the way that things work something wonderful or awful is due to occur. It usually is a combination of the two alternatives; and individuals are affected depending on their personal standing in the invented reality. For the most part I would like to keep my inventing urge to the world of art, for music and stories and pictures of alternative realities. Bringing invention to psychology and philosophy without understanding the difference should make me hesitate. I think Adolph Hitler was an artist. He had a mind for invention. He did not seek to discover the truth he sought to make his invention the truth. Hitler is too depressing to use to make a point about both sides of this coin. I think that Sigmund Freud is a better subject. He invented a way to explain how the mind works. This is a good example of the ills and gains that come from this type of thinking. Few people today would use a strict Freudian analysis of psychological issues with his invented parts of the psyche, but he began a serious discussion of the workings of the mind and certainly the idea that therapy could be beneficial to those suffering from anxiety or compulsive behaviors. Many ills would have been avoided if it were recognized as an invention rather than discovery; but if people did not believe it to be wholly true would it have had an impact? Would advancements in psychology have occurred? I don’t know. When a concept is invented I test it by asking what will the consequences be if it is made a part of my real world. In a larger sense what will be the consequences for each individual. I believe history is filled with many such inventions. 
	I am always in danger of romanticizing imagination by giving it some magical aura and making it something more than my animal brain at work. I must be on guard against this. I must be diligent in reminding myself that this is an animal brain that has evolved to make feelings into concepts and twist them any way that I want so that I can come up with new ways to meet my needs. Behind my house is a creek and I have observed two kinds of frogs. I must be exact here and say that I think that I have observed two kinds of frogs but I have never tagged them or done any real scientific research to confirm my hypothesis. I believe I have observed two kinds of frogs near the creek. One type always jumps in the water as soon as I approach and one type freezes where it is and it lets me come very close to it, relying on me not seeing it and only jumping when I am almost on top of it. Both of these strategies can work to keep a frog from being eaten and evolution has proved that by each of these types of frogs making a go of it to this day. I don’t believe that frogs sit and think about whether this will be the time that they jump or the time that they rely on their camouflage and stillness to keep  from being spotted. I think that different frogs are born with different tendencies. I know that I have both of these strategies in my mind when I am in danger and several more. I have to make a decision and I have to live or die with the idea that the decision could be wrong; these frogs just jump at the first sign of trouble or freeze in place. I am envious of this sometimes and thankful at other times for the myriad of possibilities I have for escape. Of course this is more invention on my part. Someone already has or will discover why some frogs jump and some freeze in place but the important thing is that I can do more than that. I do not always react to a  situation with only my feeling, my desire to keep myself safe. I have trained myself to not be afraid of certain things that should really have me jumping or freezing in place every time they occur. I have confronted danger at times when it was not in my bodily best interest to do so. I did this because I decided that running was worse for me than taking the chance of getting my ass kicked. Fear of looking like a coward,  with my imagined options and remedies, probably requires so much of my invented binary code that it can not be mapped. Hopefully I can see its root. I must train myself to look to the root of these growths of thought, to the feeling that is the 0 or the 1.  This is the point at which I can know the here-and-now feeling of an experience. The point I can know the yearning or being satisfied part of a moment and dealing with its ramifications most effectively. 
	My brain has not only evolved as an organ of my species, for all intents and purposes it evolves every day. Mutations of thoughts change my mind constantly. I imagine new ways to do things and the ones that work survive. Perhaps all animals do this to some extent but I am convinced that my human animal brain does this to an extent like no other animal. I don’t have to go with my instincts or my gut feelings. I can create a new way of acting. I can train myself to go against my instincts. This is what makes me accidentally special in the animal world and why I have done so many wonderful and awful things. Who decides which are wonderful and which are awful? I do. This is maddening to those who want answers that can not be questioned, that are absolute. I know for me there can only be discovery of facts and the invention of how I  want to deal with those facts. I decide which inventions to cherish and which to abhor. 

3

	My taste for invention gives me away. I must admit that I am thrilled by the thought of magic in the world. I don’t want card tricks or disappearing monuments. I am talking about those magical moments in life that burn at me, when I am filled with wonder at a mystery of any kind. I don’t want to be able to explain these moments with equations and chemicals.  Science for me has always felt cold. If I truly know myself and make an honest assessment then I am a romantic. I want the intuitive hero to defeat the chilly autocrat. I want there to be benevolent fairies spinning around the woods and I want it to be true that I can overcome anything by simply believing I can.  I am, however, a romantic with an analytical brain and as a child I had to know why my toys from Santa Claus came from Sear’s toy department and why some kids, who I knew were nicer than me but poorer, got cheaper gifts. I had to recognize that all the magic in the world has an explanation. That it is slight of hand or a grand illusion or a part of nature waiting to be discovered. I might enjoy it as magical until it is explained but I realize that it can always be explained by something occurring in the natural world. This did not and does not come easily for me. 
	I am convinced now that only the natural world is reality and yet this does not keep me from seeking an ideal. An ideal that perhaps gives a magical feeling when I strive for something that does not occur, as far as I know, anywhere else in the natural world. A human animal can imagine a perfect form and then try to mimic it in reality. The ideal I am imagining is a just society; one that is fair for all individuals. I know that for me to maintain this magical feeling, in striving for my ideal, it is necessary for me to co-exist with others and it is necessary for me to understand that there is no obligation for humans to live in this society. I can claim no magic to guide it or to give it supernatural merit. It has as its foundation the magical feeling that comes with describing something that I know can work.  It has as its framework the support of those who also strive for this ideal. 
	I have asked myself whether if I only believed in one kind of magic, a kind of magic that did not leave room for other types of magic, if I would want a form of  society that works for everyone? I first imagined how I would be if I could really convince myself again that a magical elf watched over me and brought me presents each Christmas. I have memories from childhood in which I would blame siblings and neighbor children for making me act, in the jargon of the cult, naughty.  A month or so before December 25th I can remember striking others in anger at their part in my transgressions and thereby doubling my naughtiness. I can remember fighting with a classmate who insisted I was a moron for believing in a magic elf. It felt like a betrayal, an affront to myself and kin. If this skeptic were right then I had been a fool. That was too much to bear so all of my venom was sunk in this person. I had invested too much time and energy in this fat elf and I would rather have beaten someone silly than look silly. I am trying to remember if I felt this same way when it came to religious matters. When I was guaranteed an eternal reward, based on my own behavior, was I angry at transgressions around me. Did it seem necessary for me to insist on everyone accepting my viewpoint on religious matters? I am not aware of any religion that insists that a person can not gain favor unless everyone around them is following the rules of that religion. Isn’t it a kind of blasphemy to try and make secular rules and regulations to force people to follow the rules of a religion? If I believe in a supreme being and yet the world is full of choices, hasn’t the world been set up, by this supreme being, for individuals to be allowed to conform of their own accord? If I insisted on secular rules is it not like saying that I know better than the supreme being? That I take it upon myself to make others follow the “proper path” as a matter of secular law; that I make them fear punishment here in the natural world. Would this have been looked on favorably from above? The religions I am familiar with and especially the one I grew up with may have encouraged preaching to the “fallen”, the uninitiated, guiding the young, but I don’t recall any punishment for those who follow the rules if they are surrounded by sinners. I don’t remember any concerns as a child that if I were good while those around me were naughty that I would suffer on Christmas morning. Perhaps it was just the temptation that I resented, or perhaps I was too proud to tolerate being thought of as behaving foolishly.    
	I have said several things about the belief in supernatural magic affecting the natural world but I don’t know if I have adequately explained my concerns about a non-religious belief in magic, the magical man among animals. For me magic is magic, it is anything that tries to tell me that I am more than an animal; that there are possibilities outside of the natural world. I can ask similar questions to both groups: do you believe in a god or do you believe that there should be a god? Do you believe that there is more to life than living or that there should be more to life than living? These are important distinctions for me when I talk to believers in a supreme being and believers in man as a magical animal. Is something true because you need it to be true? Of course this notion of magic is probably offensive to both of these groups. Perhaps people who are religious are okay with magic, maybe not the word magic to describe their god but at least the notion that there is something greater than nature. They believe there is something that does not have to follow the rules of nature. But secular thinkers can be quickly put off at being seated in the same pew with religious thinkers. I have been in this position and I still am involved in conversations today that bring to light this magic. In these discourses it is assumed human animals are special animals. Not just an animal with unique attributes but special in the sense that human animals must be held to a higher standard; and not in the same way that I would like man to behave but by saying that it is wrong for a human to act certain ways, ways that are deemed not fit, fundamentally, absolutely. In the past I have insisted that there is a model for beauty. I have insisted that some art is legitimate and some is not. I have tried to find magic in evolution and I talk to people regularly who still look for magic in evolution. There is a conscious or subconscious need to give evolution a goal; to give evolution a personalized will of some kind rather than the simple survival of the best suited mutations. I have wanted to be more than an animal, I have wanted to be the bearer of a magic within myself that will be the answer to all of the questions of human animals. It is very difficult to give this up, to look back at beliefs that appear foolish in the natural world. 
	It took a long time for this notion of being an animal to sink in. I now expect it of myself because it makes everything easier to understand. But I must co-exist with those around me and I can not expect them to accept my beliefs. Maybe it would be best if everyone just believed that their beliefs were magical, or if this term is offensive then they should believe that their beliefs are special; that their being part of a belief system is making them something more than an animal. My hope would be that they would not expect anything from outside their group other than tolerance. I prefer to live with an understanding that we each put up with the other’s ideas of truth rather than policing and fighting endlessly in order to quash ideas I find distasteful. If no one group can disallow the beliefs of another group then they have nothing to fear. In my ideal society when segments of the society with differing ideas of truth meet they are not beholding to any idea except to treat others as they want to be treated. I  have no need to try and change another’s idea of truth as long as that person abides by the fabricated “absolute” that we must respect each individual’s right to be. 
	I do not want to go after someone's magic on a personal level. I don't want to mess with what it brings someone personally. I take issue with magic on an institutional level. The harm it has caused and causes on a societal level. The harm it causes by imposing itself on those who prefer not to have faith that they are more than an animal. This is the crux of my concern with magic as a basis for society. I can understand people who tell me that they have faith and that they understand that faith is not science and doesn’t need to be science. They do not need to prove anything to me for their faith to have merit to them. They understand that there is no scientific proof that a being can live outside of the laws of nature or that man is just special and must be made to live to a higher standard than other animals. They have faith because they know that they need more than the scientific method to be a believer. I can respect this stance. I see that their line of thinking is ontologically sound. That is to say that, in the case of religious people, to believe that there has to be a god because only faith is needed because there has to be a god; this is outside the command of science because they put it outside the command of science. I must admit that following this line of thinking it can be said that there is a possibility that one day the sky could open up and a bearded head will appear and tell us that our science was all set up to see if we could have faith in the unscientific. That would be the romantic in me speaking. 
	I would say the same things to those that eschew religion but believe in the magical man among animals. I see the merit in their belief system. I know that most people find the same things beautiful.  I know that societies only work when individuals are held to a standard. I know that it is a good idea to look to a goal of making society as consistently just for all individuals as it can be. I also know that this animal has learned all of these things. As part of the natural world I know that art and the societies that we live in are inventions. Perhaps there is an inherent factor that makes most human animals attracted to certain shapes or sensations but there is no right or wrong art. Paintings, music, dance, stories, these things can not be measured as beautiful except by each individual. I know I can make judgements that lines are not correct, voices out of tune, poor grammar is used, but these are only measurements of straightness and tuning and accepted language rules, not of creative pleasure. When enough people like something an artist will know if they have struck on something popular or not, but they will not know that they have found some universal definition of beauty. When enough people agree with or are made to accept a definition of what is just then that becomes the code. It is not a discovery of a universal system of justice. There is no sense arguing about what is absolutely beautiful or what is absolutely just unless you have already made up a fabricated “absolute” which I, of course, can choose to ignore. I can accept that these believers  feel that man must have a higher standard than other animals. I can accept that there is a standard of beauty in given societies, that there is a standard of justice in given societies. I crave some of these same things but when I am forced to conform to an ideal because it is believed to be an objective truth, then I must speak out. I must say that it is an invented truth and we each decide to abide by it or not.
	I know there is no right or wrong society to an animal and yet, for me, there is only one kind of society that guarantees consistency in keeping each individual free to pursue his own definition of beauty and truth. This is a society that understands that it must tolerate individual preferences up to the point that they impede on another individual’s ability to exercise his preferences. I do this for others to insure the same is done for me. This is just a more complicated way of stating the golden rule; a rule that seems so common that it is overlooked and forgotten readily. It has been around so long and has become so much background noise that no one seems to take it seriously if they take notice of it at all. So I will just keep saying it in different ways and maybe I will find something that will shine again, something that will seem magical. 

4

         I believe the imagination I have is unique in the animal kingdom. It is unique as a giraffe’s long neck is unique, as an elephant’s trunk is unique. Until it is proven to me that other animals have the ability to imagine in the same way that I do I will maintain this belief. I have imagined a way of living that is not subject to my animal instincts alone. I can create and follow a code of conduct that gives me the confidence that I am not at the mercy of basic animal desires; my own desires or those of another member of the society. This evolutionary mutation or honing of an element of our animal brains, imagination, also allows me to put myself in another beings place, to have empathy for another. I take this line of thinking in an effort to convey that empathy, for me, is a product of imagination that pushes human animals to form societies that rely on a code. These are viewed as just societies to the human animals that form them. For me empathy is most important to forming a just society; this notion of empathy from the biological evolution of my brain and the day to day evolution of my thinking. I think that my ability to empathize and to put aside empathy may be one of the most important aspects of my brains ability to imagine alternatives to my animal instincts. That it is this ability that has made us such a successful species.
	I am talking about empathy not sympathy. I am never really certain of the differentiation of these two terms but I do not want to imply that just feeling pity for another is what I am talking about. Using my imagination and experience I ask, what can another human experience that I can not relate to in some way? I use empathy to mean that I am trying to understand another’s circumstance by imagining myself in their circumstance. What if the saddest thing that has ever happened to me is the loss of a beloved pet. Why can I not empathize with someone who has lost a human loved one; to feel their pain, relatively speaking. To say, “I know that feeling of the most sad I can be and therefore I know how you must be feeling”.“You can not compare the loss of a dog to the loss of my father” comes the retort. I say that in this instance empathy is remembering the saddest I have been and relating it to someone else’s experience. This is important because when someone tries to block my efforts to empathize then walls are formed and they will only get taller and thicker with each block. This often happens in racial, national, gender situations, “you can’t know what it’s like to be me”. A more specific example would be: “you don’t know what it is like to be black when the police pull you over”. It must be asked if I, a white person, can call to mind when I have felt frightened or angry when I felt I was being picked on or felt that I was not going to get a fair hearing in a situation. If I can call to mind my worst moment with such a situation and imagine it happening several times then why can I not empathize. Of course it is important to give some perspective, “I felt I was treated like that one time and I remember how angry I was, so I can imagine how this more consistent and intensive situation must be making you feel”.  Allowing empathy can be as important as giving empathy in order to keep walls from forming. I must try to not be so daft as to not understand what power is being given up by allowing such empathy. 
	I do know that my empathy withers when someone keeps telling me over and over again that I have no idea what it is like to be them. I have known people who have had horrible things happen to them. Their screen is to make their sadness or their anger so unique that I can not ever understand it, so there is always something to separate us. This not only makes me feel more separate from a person but can, certainly in extreme circumstances, push me toward those whom I more closely resemble and who allow my empathy. I do know that when I am allowed to empathize with those who do not superficially resemble me then I grow more comfortable with those superficial differences. 
	I do not want to paint empathy as an attribute that only leads to wonderful ends. There are times when I may have been too empathetic; times when whole societies have been too empathetic. The only way I can think to give clarity to my point about empathy’s importance comes in showing when I need to put aside or lessen empathy. The answer is: when I  am thinking about  killing or hurting other animals. I need to put aside or lessen my ability to empathize when I am defending myself against other animals or killing other animals for food. I have to block my ability to put myself in another’s place in order to do them harm. This understanding of when not to use empathy convinces me how important empathy is to the progress of the human animal toward a just society. Empathy allows me to see myself in others and to give them the benefit of a doubt in many situations. It is in the DNA of, “do unto others as you would have done to you”. But I can not forget that empathy must be put aside in times of imminent danger; even if circumstances when I truly have to defend my life, or stave off starvation, are thankfully rare. Furthermore, I will always contend that if empathy were at the forefront of decisions that lead up to these situations of imminent danger, then many times these situations would not occur. 
	I believe that there have been very few large scale, modern wars that were one sided, aggressive attacks in which empathy would have been wholly detrimental. Raids on others land solely to take what others have was a mainstay of armies for much of our history; but I think that for many years now leaders have had to at least come up with some other pretense for attacking neighbors. The example usually given of too much empathy is the policy of appeasement just prior to the second part of the world war known as World War II. An aggressor, the Nazis, seemed intent on subjugating and in some cases destroying whole populations; but I can not think of the second part of this war without viewing it in context with the first part of the war known as World War I. What if America had empathized with both sides of the conflict equally? Would this war have ended in a stalemate, with no clear victor. What if the winning side had been more empathetic in the peace, would a less destitute Germany have been less of a breeding ground for Nazis? Yet  Hitler did rise and the Japanese military extremists came to power in the Pacific, so they had to be dealt with as imminent dangers. I know that if I empathize too much I will not be able to do the things necessary to avert my own subjugation and possibly my own demise. One on one situations can be even more apparent regarding too much empathy. When an individual clearly intends to do harm to my person and I react with empathy rather than self defense, I will suffer. I think it is easier to see the imminent threat in these situations than on the larger scale. On the larger scale I believe that these situations should be rare, especially if both sides of a disagreement are able to employ empathy toward their adversary. This is why leaders intent on going to war have to first battle their populations ability to empathize. One of the first orders of business is to make the possible enemy unworthy of empathy. 
	I feel now that I have never been more empathetic as a person. That I am more empathetic than my ancestors and that many large populations of the world are more empathetic than ever before in human history. I think this comes from living in relatively affluent societies for generations. Perhaps leisure time, time away from extreme hardship, fosters empathy. While there is great danger when dealing with adversaries who do not have the same level of empathy, there are also many opportunities for solutions lost when limits are put on empathy. This is most apparent when dealing with adversaries who I perceive to have little empathy for me. I sense every day that well meaning people are finding ways to dilute their ability to empathize because they fear that they will be over run. It is an awful position to be in, the position of having to judge when too much empathy will endanger individuals and perhaps whole societies. I feel this when I imagine myself in the place of a soldier involved in front line actions. As a soldier I can not have empathy at the fore front of my thinking and yet soldiers who never empathize are in danger of committing war crimes. This is nothing new and the numbing madness of this quandary should tell me how extreme a situation needs to be before I actually put myself in such a situation.  
	My belief is that I need to maintain empathy for those who consider me their adversary, even extremists, because in the long run I will have the high ground. I will have the high ground because I believe that most individuals want to live with a sense of security. A sense of security in the here-and-now and if at all possible the near future. Most individuals will gravitate toward this higher ground because they want empathy for themselves and their loved ones as individuals. Such empathy in a society makes for more personal security, and I think individuals will be willing to tolerate many things to achieve this security. They will temper even their magical beliefs in order to feel that they and their families are safe. If I make my position the one that guarantees security for each individual regardless of their individual beliefs, then this will be the higher ground. I prefer to work toward this end rather than making decisions based on what an extreme individual with extreme magical beliefs will do. There are times this could cost me my life. There have been times in history when it has cost societies many lives but once the initial attack is over the higher ground will go to those who employ empathy for the most individuals. The most individuals will be drawn to this position. I see extremists limiting themselves in ways that make them powerful in the short run and increasingly vulnerable once they have finished their initial attack. These extremists come from factions of all major religions and social belief systems. They can not bear to exist with other belief systems. In my mind they become a common enemy for a diverse range of individuals because they meet on a circle at a point of totalitarianism. The far left and the far right keep bending the line away from individual self determination until they find each other at the hellish point of executions and concentration camps. 
	There are just too many individuals who will not fit into the extremist’s ideal. Even those who share some magical beliefs with the extremists will not be able to maintain living with such limitations. They will have children who will need more empathy or come to care for neighbors who need more empathy, who will need more understanding of their diverse needs. I believe the many needs of many individuals, in fulfilling their desires, will always find a way to puncture the limiting veneer of any extremist society.   

5

	I have ended up writing about other human-animals much more than I intended to at the outset. It was really inevitable as I tend to socialize with other human-animals. Since I can only be an expert on myself I have had to make many educated guesses about others and I found myself doing this more than I originally intended. It is my intention to live with these others regardless of my level of expertise on them, so a leap of faith is necessary. It is my hope that they imagine and therefore empathize in much the same way that I do. But if I am going to continue on this line then I need to be more specific about what I mean when I write things like: a consistently just society and a fabricated “absolute”. 
	Once I accept that I am an animal, I have to accept that I want to live in a society that keeps me from being at the mercy of animal instincts. I do not want to be at the mercy of my animal instincts or the animal instincts of others, so I am concerned how I left dangling the statement option from the earliest pages of this primer,  “I like how I am, deal with me”. I need to address how an animal, like me, will deal with those who refuse to leash some or, at times, all of their  animal instincts.             
	Whatever I do is natural. Whatever a group of animals does is natural. Some behaviors may be frightening to me but I can not say that anything that has ever happened in the universe is unnatural. Human-animals have decided which natural behaviors best suit a community. Within this community I decide the rules to which I am willing to abide and how and when I am willing to suppress my desires in order to feel secure in the company of the group. With this kind of thinking I can allow myself, the individual, the fundamental portion of the equation, to be subject to the rules of the group because I can reason that it is best for this individual. I don’t know if this is how it has been for others, but it is how it must be, for me, now.
	What to do with an animal that will not suppress its desires in order to live peaceably in a society? The simplest answer is that if this animal will not accept the contract, the rules of society, then he can not be part of the society. I understand that expelling from a society in this day and age may mean imprisonment rather than exile. The believers in the magic man of nature, the special animal who can reason away any solution, must ask how we have the right to do this. They might say,  “why should he suffer for doing what he desires as an animal, why are society’s rules deemed superior to his?” The other magic believers, the believers in a magic from outside the natural world simply say, “because it is ordained by god or the gods that things must be a certain way”.  I know that as an animal I have one right. It is an ability called a right that is so undeniable that it seems foolish to even label it. It is the right to do whatever I desire. I know I can do what ever my physical abilities at any given time permit. I know that when the only consequence I care about is satisfying my desires then I can try to satisfy my desires when, where and how I want.  I fully understand that all animals have this so called right. I am willing to delay satisfying my desires and regiment how my desires are satisfied within this agreement called society. If I should decide that I do not want to regiment my behavior and I am removed from the society then I have been no more wronged than when a non-conforming  animal is put out of a pack or herd or hive. It is not a question of whether an animal has a right to do as it pleases, an animal can do as it pleases, but another animal, or in this case a society of animals, can respond to this unwillingness to conform by expelling that animal. This is why I imagine a society that only regulates an individual’s behavior when it physically effects another individual. 
	I know that if other individuals and I desire to live with certain rules then there is a society. I know that if most desire to have a “dictatorship” by an individual, by a group, by a republic, then it will be so. What ever rule the most animals desire the most will “dictate” how the rules are made and how they are applied. And if I desire to be safe from immediate harm/discomfort by not questioning an oppressive rule then I get what I desire. If most of the people in a society desire to be safe from immediate harm/discomfort by letting one person or a tyrannical minority rule then they get what they desire. I am embarrassed to say that I stand by almost daily and let others feel the weight of unnecessary governance because it is easiest for me at this time. I will state that I do not want to abide by rules set down to appease a supernatural being based on faith. I will state that I do not want to be stifled by a quest for reason for its own sake with no eye to what is practical in dealing with the natural world as I experience it. I will admit that I have done very little about this in practice. I think there are many like me and we have the government that we desire, one that bothers us very little and some others all the time.
	I do not chafe at the thought of making others conform to the rules of society when I believe in those rules; so I must believe in those rules. I do not believe in all of the rules of our current society so I do chafe at people being made to conform when they are only trying to satisfy their desires and are not keeping others from satisfying their desires. In my ideal society I do not want to banish a person because they smoke crack cocaine but I do want to banish a person when they smoke crack in a playground with children, when they steal to get crack cocaine, and I may have to consider if I want to banish someone because they have become indigent from smoking crack cocaine and begin sleeping on my front doorstep. This banishment, this being put out of the pack, can have different levels because as a society we can decide there are different levels. Imprisonment, which is our only feasible way of keeping a person out of the pack, should be reserved for individuals who are a physical danger to others or habitually prove themselves to be unwilling or unable to abide by the pack rules. I do not want to exile people who urinate in public and sleep in doorways to the same place as people who kill, maim and rape people. I do not want to do this and I would hope that others in my society would feel the same. I understand that all of this, this application of rules, is just what I want to do. What I and the others in the society want to do. It is not a universal truth, not the right thing to do by any measure other than a practical sense of what would work best. I can also sit by while some rules are applied that I feel are unnecessary but do not directly impact me. I am sure I, or those that come after me, will eventually pay for this apathy. 
	I know that for me to be comfortable with confining non-conforming animals, I need to know that the society I am advocating is only trying to inhibit animal desire when it is butting up against other individuals and their ability to meet their desires. I need to know that the rules are limited to making society safe to live out individual lives, not honed to crush desires that are unappealing to me or another individual or even the majority of the society’s members. 
	If an adult wants to perform sex acts for money or shoot heroin in a private space I do not feel compelled to intervene. This comes from a fabricated “absolute” for me. A belief that I want to convince my society to accept: that an individual can fulfill their desires up until they directly inhibit another’s physical desires.  The in-home heroin user and sexual entrepreneur are not directly inhibiting the physical desires of other individuals, so I am only left to consider regulating these practices. Do I want someone shooting up in public or someone running a brothel in a neighborhood? I don’t think I do but I would like to know how it will adversely effect others before I make any regulations. Regulating is for curbing where and possibly how and when individuals exercise their desires. It is not for keeping individuals from ever exercising their desires. I know that there is a long history of regulating “distasteful” practices until they are, for all intents and purposes, illegal. With diligence this can be avoided. With practiced care the often mentioned slippery slope can be seen coming and the necessary traction prepared. The ideal behind the system of American government is based on this thinking; the thinking that checks and balances provide the necessary traction against abuse by tyrannical majorities/minorities. For me society and its rules should only be concerned with regulating desires when they are an imminent, physical barrier to others in the society satisfying their desires. I find it hard to fathom a situation in which a policeman would ever need to come into my home because I am doing heroin and arrest me for the good of society. I am sure that someone can fathom a situation and I would hear them out and decide on the merits of their claim, the practicality of the claim. What would be the consequences of honoring the claim or denying it. My guess is that the protestation will have its roots in a need to control what is deemed good or evil, natural or unnatural, human or beastly. In my experience, with some well-aimed questions, biases become apparent quickly. “Because it is not what we should be doing with our sacred bodies” or “we need to save him from himself, he should be making so much more of his life”, are not convincing answers to me. “He is a danger to others and he inhibits their ability to meet their desire for feeling safe” or “this behavior presents a provable public health hazard” or “this is not a business district it is a neighborhood”, are much more likely to gain traction with me.
	I can not simply agree to whatever the majority desires to happen or allows to happen. There is historical precedent that this is a pathway to the oppression of many individuals. That is why it is difficult discussing how I, and my like minded society, will make rules. How do we arrive at where, when and how we will regulate desires? It is here that I see why fabricated “absolutes” are necessary and all must abide by them. They can not be subject to voting. I am thinking of such things as the freedom of speech and of thought/religion, the freedom of the press, the freedom to decide what to do with our own bodies. You should not be able to vote on “absolutes” in each election cycle. And if my quotation marks are becoming as tiresome to read as they are to type then it is necessary drudgery. It makes me remember that when it comes to rules put upon animal behavior there are no absolutes. We can agree to abide by rules and we can agree to always hold on high certain guarantees for an individual regardless of what the majority feels at a certain time. These “absolutes” protect all individuals. They are the foundation of a consistently just society. I know this is the best way for me and I have to say that my reasoning tells me that it is the best way for everyone for one simple reason: anyone can be guaranteed a safe place in this ideal society. People can believe and practice, on their own person, any belief system they want. Every individual would be guaranteed this basic “right” to quench their desires for religion, sexual satisfaction, or lifestyle; can the same be said for any other society that would be forged with a particular religion or belief system dominating the rule making of that society? I do not believe so. This ideal is the best for individuals because everyone can practice their own beliefs, on themselves, and no other society would be willing to guarantee this. As I wrote earlier, this model is not my invention. When I think of a successful society it is overseen by a government much like the ideal for the government of the United States. It is buttressed by a bill of rights. It is based on principles that aim to keep individuals from being ruled by tyrannical minorities or majorities. It is a republic that hopes to elect individuals with an understanding of these principles to make the decisions necessary to keep the society on the proper path; individuals who understand that regulating the behavior of individuals is the act that must be considered with the most care. It is a republic that has these elected officials appoint judges to mind the “absolutes” of our society and only amend those “absolutes” or allow new ones to be imposed after careful consideration of the most important “absolute” of all: only regulate an individual’s ability to fulfill his or her’s desire when it directly impedes another’s ability to meet his or her’s desire. If individuals are willing to compromise their “right” to meet their desires when, where and how they want then an understanding of why certain desires must be regulated, or certain “absolutes” abided by, should be the foundation of any discussion on laws. I hope it is obvious from earlier paragraphs that “because it is unnatural”, “because it is evil”, or “because you should want more for yourself”  are not sufficient answers for me. I can not expect others to leash their animal instincts or temper their desires unless not doing so is going to effect me physically. Why is my desire to drink coffee  every morning different from someone else’s desire to smoke pot every morning? And of course I am back to: do unto others as you would have done to you. This thinking is the cornerstone for individuals in an equitable society. It is the cornerstone for individuals who want to be left to decide how they want to treat themselves. 
	It is all invention of course, invented by human-animal imagination. It is invention that stands up to the scrutiny of a society that values individual freedom. If every individual can thrive in private and expect tolerance in public then I can not imagine a better arrangement. It would seem to me that the only individuals unhappy in such a situation would be individuals who desire to prohibit other individuals from ever satisfying their desires. I would not feel badly about leaving these individuals unhappy, unsatisfied.  

Epilogue

	When I don’t know all of the answers there is always a leap of faith necessary. For me it has become faith in the scientific method even when an answer does not seem possible. I want science to have answers that are absolute, right now. I want science to be magical. I must recognize that science can not always be positive of the finality of answers. This is because of a lack of facts or our inability to properly interpret those facts but I have faith that science is our most consistent tool for discovering facts. In the past if I wanted to have all of the answers I turned to magic. My faith was put in supernatural elements that gave me answers, absolutes. The magic may not have given me all the answers but it gave me reasons why some things had to remain a mystery. It gave me confidence that if I did “this” now then I would get “that” later. I now have confidence that, as part of the natural world, I can discover which human inventions work best for me.
	I know now that I need to be confident in my life as an animal. This can seem to be a life of uncertainty and so I give it some certainty by controlling the things that I can control, like my behavior. I control my behavior in hopes that others will control their behavior. I would like to have only facts to support my ideas for how best to do this as an individual in a society but at times I take a leap based on what seems the best choice. I examine the consequences of each possible action and discover which choice will be best for individual, human-animals. I do this because I am an individual, human-animal. So my ideas about specifics can be wrong, they can be skewed and silly, but my premise will not be, it is fool proof. I am an animal living in the natural world where good and evil are subjective terms and right and wrong only have power in an accepted code of conduct. It then becomes a question of what is best. What is best for the most individuals to feel safe living their individual lives?
	
I am an animal I don’t believe I could ever understand myself if I did not know this. It can be  argued that my brain is bigger relative to my body than in other animals. It can be argued  that I have greater capacity for creative thought. This does not change the fact that I have an animal brain that fundamentally works, that it is driven like every animal brain. Giraffes have a very long, very strong neck but  fundamentally it works in the same way that my neck does. 
all thought begins and ends with this understanding I can think anything I want. My brain does not have to limit any ideas but I must always keep this basic understanding of what I am in order to understand my motivations.  I can say that I am an animal that wants to be more than an animal. I can invent all kinds of scenarios to explain my actions.  I will never know myself unless I take the time to attribute my motivations to the basic motivations of all animals. I am selfish, selfish as all animals must be.  Even if I do something for someone else I understand that I am driven to do so because it is satisfying something in me. 
my evolutionary advantage is imagination Not a pretty phrase I know but it is necessary to state this way. The poet in me wants to make this a line of lyrical beauty but I know that its real meaning would get lost in prettier words. The human brain has evolved biologically allowing for increased thought process and my brain has evolved to the point where its foundational desires are almost unrecognizable.  I am aware that science is learning more and more about how other animals also are creative but I believe that science will always find that the human animal has a brain that can not be matched when it comes to imagination. My brain has taken the simplest desires/ feelings and made them into great webs of thought, for better and for worse. 
I create to survive My creativity is the advantage. What I lack in speed and strength I make up for in creating new reactions to survive every day. Creating refers to any idea beyond the most basic animal instincts but recognizes that my eventual creation is just a mutation or many mutations of the same instincts that all animals have. I have imagined them differently and it has helped me and my ancestors survive.
at times I have imagined myself more than an animal I think I have made up a lot of things to explain this very complicated thought process that my complex animal brain has; instead of just going to the common threads, the basic feelings that all animals have. As a child I believed in supernatural powers and I was moved to make decisions and to act in ways that I would not have done without this confidence or fear. Even after religion I have done things because I thought I had to perform to some higher level than an animal, without understanding that this was a choice that I was making based on the web of thoughts that I had amassed. 
Capable of wonderful things wonderful is of course subjective and we can all imagine and search history for the details
Capable of awful things awful is of course subjective and we can all imagine and search history for the details
 I imagine there is a better way to do wonderful things This is what I feel called to do. To define wonderful for myself as benefitting the most individuals at once. No other animal has to do this. I do not expect others to have to follow this path unless they also choose to look for a way that is most beneficial to maintaining  individual freedom. Having made such a choice I do not need to insist that people seek more than the satisfaction of their animal instincts but I will insist that they abide by the rules of a society in which they are given safe haven, or find somewhere to act on their animal instincts that does not effect other individuals.  
I am an animal I don’t believe I could ever understand myself if I did not know this...