I've thought (and written) a lot about consciousness over the years, but lately the issue of consciousness -- what is it? how do we cultivate it? how do other beings experience it? -- is a big part of my thoughts.
As a trainer, my goal with my dogs is that I want them to be as healthy and happy and well-adjusted to our family life as possible. I don't expect that they will always do what I want when I want, even my husband and growing up kids don't do that. Even my car doesn't do that. I love the fact that my dogs have minds of their own, that is a huge fun part of living with other animals! Exploring their minds, their consciousness, helps me get a better sense of my own.
It's sort of like when I was younger and I went to Europe (traveled around on my bicycle, with a guitar strapped to the back) for six months. I'd always imagined that you could buy blueberries and maple syrup and wear cut-off shorts anywhere in the world. Living in foreign countries gave me perspective, helped me to see what is special about my own country. It's the same thing training dogs -- looking into their behaviors and "thoughts" is almost like a visit to another country. It helps me to have perspective on the things that make the human mind so interesting and special.
But humans aren't THAT special. I mean, we aren't so special that we are entitled by the universe to torture or be cruel to other animals. And in our heart of hearts, we all know that. We know we are supposed to kind to other animals, and we know that our compassionate urges are what qualify us as human.
What other animal builds hospitals and schools and works so hard to care for sick and aged and infirm (even if they are strangers) amongst us? Humans have a consciousness that reinforces our "humanitarian" behaviors, and when people go nuts (like the mall shooter we are reading about in today's paper) it's as though the human animal wants to test itself out: am I really human, even if I can behave in this inhuman way? Or maybe it's an example of consciousness trying desperately reinvent itself, a desperate search for something bigger, some idea about what we really are that our consciousness CAN'T reshape. Maybe the fact that human beings use consciousness to construct ideas makes all ideas seem somewhat artificial. Maybe violence indicates human struggle against conscious awareness. Maybe our consciousness terrifies us as much as it obligates us.
Consciousness is really important, and i'm just rambling, dumping out excess thoughts here that have been stimulated by today's news about a mall shooting, yesterday's visit to a nursing home (where it briefly penetrated my consciousness that I too might wind up swearing, strapped into a blue leather chair), and simpler daily interactions with all the animals I love. No animal is perfectly conscious. We struggle to digest our consciousness. But animals have vast areas of consciousness, or we wouldn't be able to function. Consciousness is contagious, and it is spreading faster than bacteria, faster than violence. Even animals pick up on it from one another, manipulating consciousness like a "tool."
