Widukinds Diary Entry #25

Would it make a difference?

We like to think we're above animals. We call people who are doing things unbefitting of a person "an animal", even though all of us are animals in the first place. We think cats are retarded because they think scratching on doors makes them open. We think dogs are retarded because they eat their own shit (seriously, I watched Ned's dog eat its entire shit the other day right off the lawn, hot off the press...the fuck?).
But what if we were put in their place?

Allow me to elaborate. Say, when you were about one years old, just a squirmy little sapling writhing around in your blanky, face scrunched up, drool hanging from your mouth and diaper filling up with dookie, you were suddenly taken, bought even, by an alien race. Your new foster parents whisk you away to their distant home planet, and set you up in their house like a brand-new puppy. Just like a pet, you are constantly and irrevocably coddled; you have an over-sized pillow-like bed, with plenty of comfortable blankets. Your owners have a mix of food, grains, fruit, etc., that they feed you regularly every day. When you do something stupid they get angry, but you learn they'll forgive you in five minutes if you just suck their jagon or whatever appendages they may have. Maybe they even have a box of Gushers for when you're really good.

But here's the catch; the alien species with whom you are living operate on a completely different level than humans. What that technically means is not quite relevant here; it is assumed that since their cranial capacity is so beyond ours, the human mind would never be able to truly comprehend their issues. On top of that, and this is the real kicker, this species' linguistic capabilities are utterly unattainable by humans. Whether they have a different type of vocal chords or they communicate telepathically or whatever, someway or another absolutely, positively, no human would ever posses the minutest physical capacity necessary to communicate with them.

We know what we're capable of when we live together and are able to pool the powers of our respective minds; nuclear bombs, landing on the moon, nugget porn, La Taqueria tacos...the list goes on. However, these things all develop from (relative) necessity and our amazing linguistic ability. Yet as an alien's pet, you wouldn't need anything, and you would possess no semblance of formal language. How could you be affected by the fact that you had no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to speak your mind to, no one to joke with, play with, fight with, etc., if you had no idea those types of relations were even possible? How would your brain develop as the abstract-thinking machine it is meant to be if it had no media with which to do so? How incredibly stunted in general would your brain be?

Let's expand the hypothesis just one more step. What if, one day, some years in to your captivity, your owners leave the house and you find an opening to the outside world. Like a curious little kitten, you slink out, eyes wide and heart racing. Suddenly, out in the open, you come across another human pet that has also escaped from his or her neighboring home.

What. The. Fuck.

I have no idea where to go from there, but I can only imagine that after seeing another human after never even beginning to comprehend that another one existed, the rapid accumulation of the cacophony of severely ingrained emotions would come close to blowing my head apart. I find this potential meeting incredibly gripping. While I do believe that humans would be much less impressive as sentient beings if they were raised by a superior alien race, our brains are clearly far more advanced in nature than those of a dog or cat. If someone was able to pull an experiment like this off, how fucking fascinating would it be to observe these first encounters? Would the two humans moan like cats do, piss on the floor a bunch, and run away? Would they fight? Try and do each other? Develop some bizarre territorial ritual long-lost from the times of Cro-Magnons? Considering you would still possess all of your inherited genetic qualities, what do you think you would do?

This has been an issue and topic of discussion that has been eating at me like Neds dog eating its own shit. Entirely. Off the lawn. Right after it pooped it out. So I hope you enjoyed. I would love to hear some additional thoughts on the matter.

Out like did I mention that Neds dog ate its own poop? The whole thing? Steamy hot from its own butt? Holy shit.