and when we ask about what it means for a being it be alive, our minds are drawn to a stream of consciousness right away. thoughts, feelings, emotions, things we simply cannot perceive unless presented in a way that is human, a way we can read. and when we ask what it means to be alive we never think of pain, because if something can start to breath, if something can start to move, then surely it can stop. to our eye, to the untrained eye, to be alive is to be human.

some out there see animals, plants, bugs, and ascribe to them on their own broken form of judgement that they are living less of a full life then a human ever could, but why?

is a cat not happy when it gets a treat? does a bug not cry when it falls prey to another? does a plant not feel love as it lets it's seeds fly through the world?
we don't know
and we never will
as if they do, their presentation of these feelings simply isn't human

i've often wondered why we humans view these things as less than human and i think i finally get it. people want to feel like their existence is the peak of it all, like they are at the best anyone could ever be. be i look at a dog, a plant, a bug, a home, a computer, a wire, a darkness laying unlit in the corner of a room, a forgotten coin laying next to a vending machine, a flowing river filled with life itself, the snow falling down soon to melt away, the shadow of someone i have been missing for so long.
and in them all,
in those bodies,
i see an equal,
and who are you to say i don't?
