sanctity of life
I was coming home tonight from Albertson's where I picked up some yogurt-covered pretzels because I was starving after accidentally taking a longer run than I was planning on when a possum materialized in front of my car and I slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a stop a foot or two in front of the possum and my pretzels flew off the passenger seat onto the floor. In that moment, when I was worried that my pretzels might be soiled, I wondered if losing my pretzels (or at least their edibility) was worth saving the life of the possum. Why did I care about the life of the possum anyway? And did I care at all, or has it just been ingrained in me that you aren't supposed to hit animals with your car? If I did care, was it some sort of primordial concern for the sanctity of life? Or is my compassion for nonhuman creatures a learned phenomenon? To be honest, even though I didn't hit the possum, I was pretty fucking pissed at it, especially when it didn't move for several seconds after my car was stopped, and then it ambled off slowly as if its very existence had not moments ago been nearly obliterated. Fortunately, the pretzels stayed in their bag.