I finished Temple Grandinโs Visual Thinking and in the chapter on animal consciousness she mentions Michel de Montaigneโs great line from his An Apology for Raymond Sebond, โWhen I play with my cat who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?โ
Serendipity: The next day, in preparation for my celebration of Montaigneโs birthday with Sam Anderson, I read his essay about animal voyages: โTo return home from an animal voyage is to become, yourself, a new animal living in your old habitat.โ
Samโs piece led me to John Bergerโs wonderful essay,ย Why Look at Animals?ย (โThe pet offers its owner a mirror to a part that is otherwise never reflected.โ)
Now Iโve picked Ed Yongโs An Immense World back up and I am enjoying it immensely.
For the third year in a row, Sam Anderson and I hung out on Instagram to celebrate Michel de Montaigneโs birthday.
I was talking too much and didnโt draw, but Sam drew this page that I love:
And this morning before we talked, I made a map of the things we talked about in our previous conversations: