The Inhuman Condition

I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 32

Author: Stephen Schettini

Host of The Naked Monk

2 thoughts on “The Inhuman Condition”

  1. Yes, and it makes one feel shame when compared to animals and the rhythm of nature. I have never figured out how humans came to think they were above nature. We are fortunate to be part of it but don’t even know we are.
    I have enjoyed your blogs – even if reluctant to comment. Please continue!

    1. Here’s one place the idea came from, Elsa:

      “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” —Genesis, 1:28

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