Jonathan Dodd’s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Time waits for no sentient being. I think I know quite a few sentient beings, and they exhibit a surprisingly wide range of sentience. In general, I find that the more sentient you are, the less well you get on with Time. Take our rabbit, for instance. Please. She squats malevolently in her hutch, scowling at me every day when I produce delicious treats and vegetable offerings, and refuses to be picked up or engaged with socially.
She (the rabbit), has no sense of Time. She knows when she’s hungry, and that’s about it. Otherwise she sits there, occasionally doing a bit of digging. Not enough to make an actual burrow, but easily enough to ruin yet another patch of lawn. She doesn’t talk a lot either. I can’t get a squeak out of her. And she has attained a veritably venerable age, without ever showing signs of flagging. I think she’s going to go on for ever.
A nice little expensive wooden thing to play with
This is all very frustrating. Not for her, of course, because she doesn’t get frustrated, having no sense of Time. We’re the ones who worry about her and have to fetch food and clean out the hutch, and ponder on her actual state of mind. We ask ourselves things like – “Is she happy?” and – “Would she like to have a nice little expensive wooden thing to play with?” And we talk to her. Why?
At least our cats talk back. They also tell us when they want something. They don’t actually ask for it by name, which is annoying, rather like a new baby, when he/she cries. You don’t know what’s wrong, or what’s missing, so you have to go through a laborious routine of checking everything, one thing at a time, until you find the culprit and the crying stops.
Starting to show their age
Our cats are getting old. They’re starting to show their age in quite different ways. One is eating less and less, and literally fading away in front of us. She’s like a wisp, and she’s wobbly now. Whenever she lifts a paw to wash her face she overbalances. It would be comical if we didn’t understand what’s causing it.
Our other cat gets lost a lot. Not outside, thank goodness. She doesn’t go very far any more. But she’ll often come through the cat flap and make a series of loud wails. Or she finds herself at the top of the stairs and makes the same caterwauling. She doesn’t seem to notice us calling out to her either, and when we go to see what’s the matter she scuttles off as if we’re about to threaten her.
I draw the line over the licking business
But apart from these symptoms, they’re both as happy and calm as they’ve always been. They sleep a lot, of course, even more than your average adolescent, and although I never thought I’d find anyone who spent more time sleeping, they outdo themselves almost every day. Otherwise, they’re both as friendly as they ever have been, enjoying our company when they want it.
It seems that we’re the ones who notice changes. I think that sentient human persons are genetically predetermined to notice changes in those around them about whom they care, and to worry about those changes. We raid the supermarket shelves for cat food that might tempt them to eat a little more, we watch them like hawks, and we’ve more or less taken over grooming duties. A lot of time is spent brushing, and wiping faces, with damp cloths. Personally, I draw the line over the licking business.
Not as sentient as we are
Every morning, the first one downstairs surreptitiously checks that all three animals are up and looking for food, and we both sigh with relief when that happens. The day will come, we know when one of them won’t be eating any more. and no matter how well we prepare, or tell ourselves that we’re doing everything we can for them, we’ll feel terrible.
But none of them would have a clue what we’re going through. In fact, if we were the ones not to wake up one morning, they would probably complain a lot about being hungry, and then go and and some alternative source of food. That’s how it goes. They are sentient, but not as sentient as we are.
The real difference is all about Time
This leads me to wonder what the difference really is. You can talk about intelligence, and the ability to use tools, or struggle with morality, or appreciate beauty and fine living, or feel anything but the most basic emotions, but it seems to me that’s all a matter of degree. The real difference is all about Time.
Our awareness is concentrated on Time. We’re supposed to be the only species that’s aware of our own mortality. Other animals understand the urge to stay alive, and reproduce, and eat, but they don’t plan ahead, they don’t panic about their biological clocks or the chances of contracting a terrible illness. And they don’t persuade themselves that problems will go away if they ignore them.
We spend far too much time worrying
We do that, all the time. We protect ourselves in some ways and simultaneously take terrible risks. We close our eyes to the probable consequences of our actions and look for others to blame when things go wrong. We can worry ourselves sick, we can persuade ourselves that the most improbable things have to be true or that the most reliable things are false, and we spend far too much time worrying about what happens to us when we’re gone.
The upshot of all this is that we all seem to live lives that involve running from each pillar to the next post, and we never seem to make any sense of any of it. This Time thing has us in its grip just as surely as a small animal can be scooped up in the claws of a hunting bird.
An extraordinarily rich life
All the stories we love are about doing the extraordinary thing, taking risks, fighting to survive or staying true to our ambitions or our beliefs, finding the right person, risking all for the people we love, and fighting those dragons for the Cause that is Right. But at the same time we dismiss these stories as fantasy, we carry on with our everyday lives, and we dream of other possibilities.
Or so it seems. Scratch most people, and you’ll find an extraordinarily rich life. We’ve all gone through pain and loss, and we’ve all cared deeply for someone or something. Some of us have witnessed the loss of all hope, and some of us have attained the greatest triumphs. Those of us who have had children have gone through the full panoply of emotions and states of mind. We’ve all had moments of the purest and most intense ecstasy, and we’ve all felt like we’re dragging our miserable bodies through an endless dark tunnel, with no end in sight.
It’s never too late
OK. So we mess up sometimes. We might do things that we regret for the rest of our lives, or miss opportunities or fail to step up to the mark. But we’re all alive, and aware of being alive, and we all know that Time is limited for all of us, and that it’s never too late. It’s never too late.
So no matter what regrets I might have for some things that have happened in my life so far, and whatever fears I may have for the future, I wouldn’t swap it for anything. As I sit and stroke my cats, or feed some broccoli stems and bits of apple to the rabbit, or hear the caterwauling, I know they’re all content and they don’t fear the future, and that’s all right, but I want to dance and fight with Time for as long as my legs will carry me.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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