We continue another few episodes with Poodle.
How sad to be left
Deaf and blind and unwanted
In Rescue no more.
We are good at labelling situations in accordance with our own perceptions.
Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am.
I think therefore it is. That is a sad situation. This is the label I have assigned to it.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet adopted a typically Stoic philosophy in his famous quote: “Nothing neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.”
The quote was originally from Stoic philosopher, Epictetus: You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.
Situations are neutral, they are what they are. Perception changes everything.
Whether Poodle felt he was in a sad situation is hardly the issue. I would love to know how he did feel. How amazing it would be to be inside an animal’s consciousness. But we can’t know that. So we anthropomorphize.
By assigning sadness to Poodle’s unenviable position, I was spurred into action.
If we regarded all of life as one neutral situation after another and never injected our own judgements, attached our own labels – what kind of existence would that be?
According to Descartes we may not exist at all.
And what would Poodle have done then?
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