A Quote by Timothy Morton
The belief that 'animals' are superior or inferior to humans because they live in an eternal now is untrue, because no being lives in a now.
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I call animals "guardians of Being," especially animals that live with humans. Because, for many humans, it's through their contact with animals they get in touch with that level of being.
When humans act like animals, they become the most dangerous of animals to themselves and other humans, and this is because of another critical difference between humans and animals: Whereas animals are usually restrained by the limits of physical appetites, humans have mental appetites that can be far more gross and capacious than physical ones. Only humans squander and hoard, murder and pillage because of notions.
The case for exploiting animals for food, clothing and entertainment often relies on our superior intelligence, language and self-awareness: the rights of the superior being trump those of the inferior.
We have such little mystery in our lives generally because of how we live now. I mean, of course, mystery is all around us, but the way we live our lives now, we're too busy to be bothered with it.
I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice - and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.
I have to think about the future because, not that I'm bored with it now, but I can't live now, it's not my place to live now. I've got to live ahead of myself.
Most of what you see now emphasizes animals being dangerous to humans.
When animals do something noble we say they are behaving ‘like humans’. When humans do something disgusting we say they are behaving ‘like animals’. Clumsy use of the English language perpetuates the myth that animals are inferior and disposable beings.
Humans are animals and like all animals we leave tracks as we walk: signs of passage made in snow, sand, mud, grass, dew, earth or moss.... We easily forget that we are track-markers, through, because most of our journeys now occur on asphalt and concrete--and these are substances not easily impressed.
You have to let kids live their own lives and make their mistakes, but it is difficult now because there are so many things in their lives which weren't in mine - I never had Facebook. And some of the things I see now I'm appalled by. So I'm as nosey about my daughter's life as I can be. I tell her, 'I'm all over you, whether you like it or not.'
It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place where animals wander around freely in idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image.
Evolution shows that in the long run, if the superior mixes with the inferior, the product is halfway between, and inferior to what you started with in the original superior group - in other words, mongrelized.
Make up your mind that nothing is more important than how I feel now, because now is everything. Now is the whole enchilada. Now is the power of me. Now, now, now, now, now... You might as well start somewhere, and it might as well be now. Why not start improving your life now, now, now?
There's no need to wait for the bad things and bullshit to be over. Change now. Love now. Live now. Don't wait for people to give you permission to live, because they won't.
Humans can't live in the present, like animals do. Humans are always thinking about the future or the
past. So it's a veil of tears, man. I don't know anything that's going to benefit me now, except love. I
just need an overwhelming amount of love. And a nap. Mostly a nap.
Because animals seem to dwell in the present moment,
because their own presence is so instinctive,
their attention so unwavering, the offer us
a different kind of compassion than humans do.
Anyone is lucky to have both human and
animal comfort in their lives.
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