Animals are not stupid just coz we don't know how to speak their language......

''Man is the measure of all things'', a dictum made by the 

Greek Philosopher Protagoras a long, long time ago.

Commonly it is interpreted as meaning that things are

true, or not true, according to how the individual

 perceives them.

The ''truth'' therefore, is relative and differs according

to each individual.

To express the way we experience life and living, we use words.

Words, spoken or written, in my view however, can be very ambiguous.

We know what we mean when we say or write something,

but how can we know for sure that the ''receiver''

interprets the words we use the same way?

''I'll be a little late for dinner tonight.'' ''Late'', as in

ten minutes or two hours?

''Trust me, I'm telling you the truth.''

Truth? As in according to your interpretation/perception of what

the truth is or.....?

Take something as simple as the words we use for colours:

What you call yellow, someone else may call orange,

your blue may be purple for someone else, etc.etc.

It gets even more muddled when we use words such as:

reality, consciousness, mind, soul, heart, love, etc.etc.

The spoken and written language if often used as an example

of what separates (and some say elevates) human beings from

animal species. 

But here's the thing: language can be both destructive

and constructive. It can soothe, it can irritate, it can heal, it

can destroy, it can bring clarity, it can confuse,

it can bring peace, it can bring war, it can bring love,

it can bring hate. (And much more)

Being a ''pondering'' kind of person, I often ponder how 

us humans have come to hold the notion that we know

that animals are less ''smart'' than humans.

Come to think of it, how do we know that animals don't

experience cruelty and suffering just as intensively as

we do?

How do we know that they don't experience trauma just

as deeply as we do?

How do we know that they don't experience loss just

as devastatingly as we do?

What makes us think that we know what goes on in their brains?

My opinion is that we don't know, we speculate.

Australia is right now going through an almost incomprehensible

loss of animals through fire.

Experts say that they don't know if our precious fellow beings

will ever be able to recover from this terrible devastation.

But perhaps worst of it all, it seems to me that mankind's 

lust for more;

more land, more oil, more water, more coal, more uranium,

 more lebensraum, more profit; 

is destroying this planet exponentially.

''Man is the measure of all things''.....

How are we doing as custodians of this planet?

We are ''smarter'' than the animals, yet it is us who are

poisoning the air, the water, the earth, the forests,

the fields, and not to mention.....ourselves.

For being smart, it seems to me that we are pretty stupid.

We are destroying our own habitat in favour of

what we call progress.

A few markers of DNA may separate us from

other living species,

but let's not fool ourselves any longer,

we are obviously not the ''smarter'' one.

''Because we have viewed animals through the 

myopic lens of self-importance,

we have misperceived who and what they are.

Because we have repeated our ignorance,

one to another,

we have mistaken it for knowledge.''

(Tom Regan)