I have returned from my hiatus. You can breathe again. I am deeply sorry to have taken such a long time between posts, but I've had so much on my plate. I know you forgive me.
What has inspired me to return to the world of blogging? Well, I just returned from a brief encounter with a gray squirrel whom I spied devouring a piece of bread my roommate had left in the yard. As I watched, I could not help thinking two things. First, 'ZOMG! squirrels are SO cute!' I must confess, though, that the cuteness factor was diminished when I saw the gluttonous squirrel regurgitate his feast on more than one occasion. Beady eyes and fluffy tails can only do so much.
But the second thing that occurred to me is that this squirrel was being exceedingly selfish. "Surely," I thought, "this squirrel must have a little squirrel family somewhere with whom he can share his feast." How many of his brethren would go hungry while he stuffed his face? But no, the squirrel continued gorging himself on the bread, spasmodic regurgitation be damned. It was then that I realized that truly charitable and generous behavior requires a sense of "I" and "other" that the squirrel does not have. Indeed, no other member of the animal kingdom has a self-awareness on par with that of humankind, a self-awareness that enables moral behavior--and immoral behavior, for that matter--to occur.
Sharing behavior in the animal kingdom--a bird regurgitating food into its young's mouth, for example--is sharing only to a point. In reality, it is merely instinctual behavior--we impute the motive of kindness. Generosity suggests much more than mere sharing--it is the fulfillment of a moral injunction to share. Absent a sense of "I" and "other," it is not possible to reflect on what rightly belongs to "me" or what ought to be shared with another. It is, therefore, impossible truly to be generous.
To close, I was wrong to think the squirrel a selfish, immoral reprobate. He could be nothing else.
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