Celebrate Good TImes...C'mon!

I am in New York City at least once a month. I have family there, I have friends there, I have a lot of memories there. But I'm not quite sure I could ever live there.

There are a lot of reasons in favor of my someday moving to NYC. My brother and his wife live there and will probably always live close by. They just had a daughter, my niece Lena Rose, who I am determined to be close to both physically and emotionally for her entire childhood life. Two out of the four (only four!) schools that have the graduate program I am looking for are located in NYC. New York is close to my former home town in NJ. There's always something to do. There's always someone around. And many if not most of my friends will move here eventually.

And yet, I've never felt comfortable there. Any time my skirt is cut a bit short or my top a bit low I feel self-conscious. I feel like every man I pass is leering at me. And I've never felt like that in Boston. Sure, Boston has it's sketchy areas, many of which I've frequented over the course of my college education, but I've always felt the undeniable sense that Bostonians look out for one another. People will hold the door for you or come to your aid if you trip or let you take the first cab or stand up on the T so you can take their seat. Men, specifically, are not nearly as scary in Boston. Once in a while I'll get a whistle but a man would never grab at me just because he felt like it. And in fact, if that did happen in Boston, I'd bet hard cash that any nearby male witnesses would spring into action to defend the aforementioned damsel in distress.

I'm the kind of person that people are almost always nice to. It's a running joke in my family that I'm destined to marry a cab driver because about half the times I've taken a cab, the driver has professed his deepest darkest secrets to me and then bestowed upon me his "card" so that I can call him "day or night, whenever I need a ride." When I took a cab out of Brooklyn last night, my cab driver and I belted "Celebrate Good Times, C'Mon!" on the freeway at midnight. It was a hilariously typical moment for me. But despite my natural ability to dazzle strangers, people are not that nice to me in New York. When I smile at them, they don't always smile back. When I hold the door for them, they don't always make eye contact, let alone say thank you. I have the unsettling sense that New York City would crush my spirit. And I don't want that to happen. It's nice being nice.

Someday there may be no logical choice but to move to the city. At least I'll have a few more years in my hometown of choice to mentally prepare.

To Work Or Not To Work

I don't quite understand what people mean when they say that their career "chose them." And yet, it seems that all the happiest individuals invariable utilize this cliche. And this being the case, it's quite worrisome that I haven't felt an intense draw towards one profession or another yet in my life.

I know I want to work with kids. At least, I'm 85% sure that for most of my life I will want to work with kids. But these days there are a trillion different ways to help children. Do I want to work one-on-one or take the command of a group? Do I want to work with normal kids or kids with developmental disorders and disabilities? Which kinds of disorders? Which kinds of disabilities? What age kids? Lord send me a sign because I'm sadly stumped.

I think I might want to be an elementary school teacher. I also think I might want to be a therapist. I also think I need to stop thinking so much. I suppose I can always change careers. Again, and again, and again. I don't know where I'll be two years from now or two years from then. Hopefully Vietnam or Chile. Maybe in New York City with my brother and beautiful niece, maybe not. Maybe I'll be a marine biologist. Only time will tell.

Orthodox Jews on Animal Rights

Tonight the concept was posed to me that while the Torah (and Bible) contains strict law forbidding the harm or torture of any animal, human beings are still considered above them. According to this Rabbi, although animals could display many if not most of the same emotions as humans, their inferior intellect means that humans shall always reign supreme. Human beings are special.

I do not agree.

This view point makes several assumptions that are flat out wrong. First, this supposes that some almighty power has made the executive decision that humans be special. But existential biology would emphasize that humans are the result of natural selection. We are the way we are entirely by chance and it might have been any other phylum of animal that made this ascent towards intellect. Furthermore, all animals in existence are a result of natural selection. Not just humans. This means that each species is perfect in and of itself. And even if one assumes that some higher power exists, then she must have been perfectly content with each creature she created. Each one uniquely different from the next. Each one perfect. Each one special.

Now this view point also assumes that humans are special because they were made in God's image, while other species were not. More specifically, this view assumes that being made in God's image is a positive thing. It may not be. God is a lone wolf. She has no meaningful relationships to speak of, frequent mood swings, and temper tantrums. And yet, she is a cocky bastard. She believes herself to be the greatest power in the universe, and asks us to worship her. And she has the audacity to create billions of beings "just like her"- arrogant, self-centered, and ignorant of their own insignificance. A wise man once told me that I should not believe everything I read. Well I read in the Bible that God is all-powerful, and that myself- along with the rest of the human populace- was made in her image. In all likeliness, this is not a good thing.

And a person who claims humans are greater than all other species due to our intellect is also assuming that our intellect is greater than that of any other animal. I don't really buy into this either. There are things animals understand and communicate with one another that humans couldn't possibly comprehend. Have you ever been to a greyhound convention? These dogs are abused, starved, and forced to race to survive for years of their lives. And when you attend a convention for dogs rescued from these horrid conditions: silence. Greyhounds do not bark at one another. Not at all. They do not need any sort of verbalization to communicate, and are thusly much more advanced than many of the humans I know, who for some reason cannot express themselves even with the entire English dictionary at their disposal. Elephants have better memory spans than humans. Octopi can navigate mazes and trick their handlers to steal fish. Squirrels are able to hide food in numerous locations, then retrieve it months later. Dolphins have their own language and use tools in their natural environment. Chimpanzees can learn sign language, and exhibit levels of empathy I've seen lack in many humans. Animals are a hell of a lot smarter than we think.

So perhaps before asserting that human beings are the center of the universe, we should reassess whether humans could even be considered the most important living beings on this planet. We shouldn't believe everything we read.