“What are rabbits for? Silly puppy. Rabbits are for dinner.”
Until this week, Miss Chioux did not know what rabbits are for. That’s a funny way of saying things, since it puts telos in the eye of the observer. Even so, Sun City being what it is, Cleo has seen thousands of bunnies in her life, but until one ran away from her, she didn’t know to hunt them.
She sure does now. Every walk starts with a bunny hunt, and if she spots her prey, all near-term prospects of elimination are swapped out for the hunting frenzy. I am coming to be worried that she will never poop in that big block-walled back yard, so avidly will she be hunting for rascally rabbits.
The empathy of her chase – the unerring way she had of predicting and capitalizing on the rabbit’s mistakes – has me rethinking her love for balls, too.
Cleo doesn’t know that what makes the blue blanket snuggly is her own retained body heat. And she doesn’t know that her many toy balls move entirely on her own energy. But qua telos, from her point of view, the balls lack motivation – they are not alive – and so they are inherently less predictable – to her – than is live game.
That’s just fun. Billiard-ball physics is duck soup to us – but running a rabbit to ground – not just the speed but the instant empathy and split-second decision-making – is completely impossible to over-thought-out human beings.
In other news:
Andrea Widburg: Life in Seattle is about to get very interesting (and that’s not good).
Joel Kotkin: Even Elon Musk is leaving California behind.
Clarice Feldman: Green Policies Return the World to Coal.
