(no subject)

I happened across a wooly bear on my doorstep this morning - heartbreaking to say the least. The poor creature is most assuredly doomed - it's far too cold, and there's hardly any food I would imagine as spring is barely here. It brought to mind suffering, and what it means to suffer. I don't care for these subcategories of "being" determined by whether or not a creature can feel...based on it's brain, the configuration of it, the nervous system, or lack thereof...It seems horrifying to me, to be born into a world in such a form, knowing only your own limitations, and having no say in the matter whatsoever. We're all like that really, it just feels, to me, as though we as human beings have maybe convinced ourselves that it is somehow different for us. A Police song comes to mind, "King of Pain." I have a hard time describing the sensation that passed through me, but I think that song does an adequate job of doing it for me.

A feeling of powerlessness passed over me in that moment, too. Not only powerlessness in my own life, but in the lives of all mortal things. Suffering and desire seem to be the two primary forces in this plane, be they visible or not.

It seems self-evident to me, that if you or I were the wooly bear, a foot from the doorstep of a warm house and pointed towards it, that we were probably trying to escape the cold in futility. It's so utterly heart wrenching.