the divide between humans and animals

In my last blog post I touched briefly on my thoughts about how there is a divide between humans and non-humans and for this blog post I am going to expand on that theory. In my last blog post I said:

“There seems to be a divide between humans and the rest of the species on earth, I feel like people sometimes forget that we are not the only species living on this earth, and that being the most advanced species it might need to be our responsibility to protect it and make sure that we allow all species and this earth itself to be around as long as possible.”

It may be true that we are far more advanced than almost all other species that live on this earth but we are still animals, we are still a natural species of this earth, just the same as all other species. And it is understandable that the very stratified levels of advanced thought, communication and other aspects of life would create a divide, but I believe it is a divide we should strive to end.

Some seem to perceive animals as “natural” per say and humans and what we do as “non-natural”. But when you think about, if humans are a natural species, wouldn’t everything we do and the reactions they cause be “natural”? This is something I started thinking about a lot when I was on a flight to Haiti over the summer. As we flew over an ocean, near the shore, I was thinking about how beautiful and natural it looked, and then I saw a boat that was casting a net and fishing. My first instinct was to think, “that is so unnatural, why can’t humans just leave nature alone?” But the more I thought about it, we are apart of nature, why should I think we need to leave it alone? If I saw a bear in a river catching fish, would I immediately think that it was unnatural and that bear should leave nature alone? No, I would definitely not think that. That boat I saw was essentially doing the same thing a bear would be doing, catching fish for food, humans just have a more advanced way of accomplishing this task, it is no less natural than what the bear is doing.

These thoughts I had this day have redefined the way I think about humans and our relationship with earth, I think it is important that people think about what happens around them from many different perspectives if they want to fully understand it and grasp what it means.