I just finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Within the work, Kundera writes about such things as loss, flawed humanity, infidelity, sex, love, death, the Communist regime, and feces. Overall, the book was thought-provoking and imaginative. It made me think differently about what I had considered life's certainties. The philosophical melding of plot and theory was very interesting. However, the chapter that most resonated with me, that actually made me sob, was Kundera's description of a dog's cancerous death. The dog was faithful, intelligent, and loved the main characters in a way that cannot be duplicated through one-on-one human interactions. Tomas and Tereza were forced to end her sufferings themselves and held her in their arms as she died.
I think I was so moved because the love of a favorite animal is an unselfish love. They rely on you completely. In the end, they die before us. We are forced to witness our dogs' pain. To suffer their loss. I don't know why I identify more with the pain or death of domesticated animals more than with the human equivalent. Maybe I feel this way because I believe animals are not the creatures Decartes described.
The idea that animals don't have souls is preposterous.
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