Death of a Fish

When I was his age, I faced a similar debacle to Gopniks son. In fact, it still kind of bothers me to this day. I'm talking about the concept of consciousness, and how it creates our identity. This idea began to bother me when I was about ten, and I made a comment about blue being our dogs favorite color. My dad laughed and quickly began to explain to me that animals such as dogs don't take into consideration things like that. It may seem trivial to you, but I feel after learning that fact I began to pity animals; the concept of having no sense of artisticness or imagination was/is a frightening thing to me. People often make off handed comments saying that they wish they were such and such animal, but in reality that would be an extremely stagnant lifestyle when compared to a human's.

I'm also bothered by the fact that our memories are what help us retain our personal consciousness. If you think about it, if you forget this particular moment reading this blog five years from now, you are no longer the same person. If you don't recall this particular state of mind, you're in a completely different place. Scary huh? Animals only remember very important things, like specific people and what tastes good, but they don't have complex memories like we do. Consequently, animals have a very shallow identity. Your brain just exploded.