I need to get out today but I’m going to write first while I remember what I want to write about. After brunch I watched a webinar by B&H photography on wildlife conservation and photography with Jennifer Vitanzo. My musical friends know her as Genevieve. I keep it simple and always call her Gen, at least by sound it’s the same as Jen. Which is she as an author of a children’s book? As I thought it’s Jennifer, her book is Santiago: True Tales of a Little Bug in a Big World. Gen wears many hats. Gen fulfills an important requirement for being my friend; she makes me think. Listening to her speak for an hour gave me things to write about. This is going to be about my thoughts, not Gen. Sorry to disappoint you. Go look at her photographs on Late Shift Media.
One of the main foci of the talk was using photography to get people to care about animals they will never interact with. She pointed out that people will ask how the fate of pangolins in Africa affects them. The usual response to that is to explain how they are important to the fate of the ecosystem, and we live in the ecosystem, no matter how much we remove ourselves from it. That’s true, and it’s smart to explain that to people, but it has little to do with my motivations for caring. Think back to when you were a kid and discovered the best thing in the world, dinosaurs. I viscerally connected with them and have always been upset that they are extinct. It’s not fair that I don’t live at the same time as brontosaurus. I know it’s apatosaurus but I’m putting myself in my childhood mindset. Bronto was my favorite dinosaur, and it always will be. He’s right there at the American Museum of Natural History. I miss all the dinosaurs. The world is sadder for them not existing. That’s exactly how I feel about pangolins, and rhinos, and lemurs, and platypodes. Even if I never see one the world is richer for them existing. Knowing that they are there makes me happy. As a kid I had an animal encyclopedia with marvelous photos of animals that I love almost as much as dinosaurs. It had pictures of all those things and a star nose mole and newborn koalas that I can still see as clear as if they were in front of me. I want a world where these things are out there and thriving. I don’t need a reason to want it, their existence is the reason. There are so many things that some people require justification, but others don’t. It’s hard to comprehend the other side of the divide. I’m sure there are some that don’t get me not wanting religion for its own sake. It’s not just cuddly and as Gen pointed out, not cuddly animals like vultures, that I care about for their own sake. Much of my attitude towards the world gelled into place when I read an article on justifying scientific research that included an insightful quote by the director of Fermilab. A congressman asked him what the Tevatron, the particle accelerator has to do with national defense, and the director said; “Nothing except that it’s one of the things that make the nation worth defending.” Some things: scientific research, music, baseball, and pangolins, do not require justification. They are of inherent value.
Now I have to go out in search of something else of inherent value that requires no justification, coffee. Good thing that Krispy Kreme is on the way. Oddly, Krispy Kreme justifies my Donut Walk™ but the exercise also justifies the Krispy Kreme. I love observing the workings of my mind.
Wise Madness 