Most of you probably don’t know this about me, but I have an affliction. It’s an overabundance of empathy, especially for animals. I inherited a double dose of it from my parents, who are likewise afflicted. My father, for instance, loved his Siamese cat, Freddie, so much that he refused to “alter” him, then let him out into the night to produce untold numbers of kittens in the San Fernando Valley. When Freddie was hit by a car, it very nearly destroyed my dad’s life.
My mother, for a time, worried that her hens kept “sitting” on unfertilized eggs, so she went down to the pet store to buy fertilized eggs to put underneath them. That produced so many unwanted roosters that she had to put them all together in a detainment facility at a separate property she owns. I joked that it was a “men’s prison.” Those roosters did nothing but fight with each other, as one might imagine, and eventually were all massacred by some kind of wild beast that breached the perimeter. Poor roosters.
I concede this is all irrational behavior, but if you were similarly afflicted, you would understand. I live with this affliction, knowing there is nothing I can do about it. I rescue spiders. I can’t kill mice or rats. The fate of pigs will be the fate of pigs, and what can I do? Imagine the history of the horse. The war horse. The westward expansion horse. The cowboy horse. I have come to terms with the fate of animals at this moment in history. At least the Trump administration ended the barbaric testing on Beagles.
I would never take the totalitarian approach and demand everyone obey my commands to not eat meat, ride horses, or keep pigs in wharehouses. If I could, I would take my revenge on people who abuse animals. There were over 3,000 accusations of animal cruelty against dogs last year. Who would do that? If I could find a hammer and five minutes alone with these people, I would sleep better at night.
Jane Goodall isn’t the only famous person with this affliction, but she has done much to raise awareness about the plight of Chimpanzees, among other endangered species. Her approach was to gently educate, speaking to people and meeting them where they were, rather than scolding and shaming them.
She traveled with a little stuffed primate named Mr. H:
She was co-opted by the Left, to be sure, to drive their political messages home about climate change or Trump or whatever else, but I like to think she was more highly evolved than partisanship. She would laugh about it, thinking how tribal humans are.
Her worries about overpopulation have, I think, been taken out of context. She visits countries like Africa, where the birth rate is exploding, but they do not have enough resources to feed their people. It seems logical that any rational human being would care about that.
I didn’t know everything about her. I didn’t really care about her beliefs. I just thought she was a shimmering soul, the rare good person. How do I know this? Someone once asked her if she was a vegan. She said she was, but that she didn’t impose this belief on others. If she were a guest in a country and they served her a meal, she would not turn it out but would politely eat what was put in front of her. Her relationship with them was more important than imposing her beliefs upon them.
There are many times in my life when I have thought, Be more like Jane. Be open-minded and kind-hearted. I have failed too often in that regard. I am not as highly evolved and can be mean and petty, as I have diminishing empathy for some people, especially those who see themselves as morally superior to half of the country.
The difference between watching my social media feeds mourn the death of Jane Goodall, whom many on the Left count as one of their own, and the silence over the death of Charlie Kirk was yet another reminder that the people who pretend to be kind really aren’t. They should be more like Jane.
She died before her two upcoming events, which are still on her website:
Jane Goodall passed away in her sleep, a fitting end for someone who did much to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures. She died as she lived her life, in peace.
She will be missed.