Pests

I have been thinking often lately about different forms of intelligence. Human intelligence is seen as superior to other animals’ intelligence, at least in Western society. However, the more I learn about rodents’ adaptability in urban landscapes, plant and fungal communication, elephants’ olfactory receptors, etc., the more I highly doubt our uniquely-human skill set of reasoning and story-telling is objectively superior. Perhaps in the mythical society we have set up, it serves us. But in the natural world, where man-made concepts do not run the show, we are on the same playing field as all other living things. We are all made of the same carbon atoms, all fated to the same eventual death.

I strongly agree with the Indigenous take that if we were to value each type of intelligence, all animals’ skills, equally, a mindset of gratitude and abundance would emerge. And I think that would only benefit the current climate crisis, as well as the loneliness epidemic.

Perhaps that is idealist to claim. But I’m 23, and if I’m not an idealist now, when will I ever be?