Veneer theory

At the Omaha Zoo by John Sypal

I sympathize with the figure in the center. They survey the seen cooly, disinterestedly, neither for nor against the motion parading towards them.

We used to posit that animals ran around randomly before we conceived that they have an internal life. The children carry on this randomness exactly, super-heated particles at odds with the order framed in this picture. I don’t see any of the humans’ faces but I am excited by their pounding fists—a mimicry of how we see other apes behave.

I am off to study what knowing each of these creatures tells us about the other.