Ever since I started working with animal models I've been asking myself the same question. What is life? I don't ask myself this question scientifically: I intuitively believe that life is a series of highly organised chemical reactions. I guess I ask the question somewhat ethically. What is life? Why is it wrong to end a life? Is the life of a human being worth more than that of a bacteria or a dog or a chicken?
Every week I incubate, culture and finally kill between 18 and 80 chicken eggs. I don't feel bad about this. Though this may have to do with me, maybe I'm particularly insensitive, but I suspect anyone who had to do what I do would end up caring as little as I do. This is the first step that leads to me asking myself the question.
The second step is my asking myself something similar to should I feel bad about killing these chicken embryos? And if I don't, should I feel bad about not feeling bad? This is a difficult question to answer, amongst other things because the default answer (culturally) is yes. Killing is bad. Killing animals is less bad, but it's still bad. However, when I think of things scientifically... If life is what I believe it is, a bunch of reactions, then asserting that killing is bad would mean that killing a human being and killing a bacterium are the same degree of bad. However, killing is quite simply interrupting a set of chemical reactions. I don't feel bad when I stop a chemical reaction (say, when I take a cake out of the oven), so why should I feel bad for stopping another set of chemical reactions?
This leads me to the uncomfortable conclusion that if I ever had to kill another human being I wouldn't feel too bad about it. I could rationalise it, and I probably wouldn't have nightmares about doing it. I wouldn't feel guilty.
However, I don't think it's right to kill people. Thinking about killing another person makes me feel not just uneasy, but positively bad. I don't want to ever be in the position where my killing someone could lead to saving a hundred people. I don't understand how someone can stop another person from being alive. It makes my head spin. It makes me feel sick. It makes me want to cry. Most of all, it makes me feel like these people who have ever killed someone (except perhaps in self defense) are aliens. I could not ever understand them. They are fundamentally different from me.
I can't argue for the respect of human life scientifically. I can't logically reason why the life of a human being should be worth more than that of a chicken. The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that my only argument against killing is an appeal to sameness and perspective. The reason I can't understand killing is because I like being alive. This sounds pretty obvious, but perhaps it isn't. I don't just like doing certain activities. I like the fact that I'm alive. I like that my heart beats and that I can run and that I can see. I like that thinks happen to me, I like growing I like being able to see the world to observe, to think, to talk to drink. I love it. It's worth every second. So my appeal is this: how can I deprive someone else from something that is so wonderful, that is such a gift? I could never do it. It's not that I think human life is special, it's just that any other human being probably sees life in a similar way to the way I see it. That is enough for me. Just for that they deserve to live. I don't know how a chicken sees the world. A chicken can't explain integration. A dog can't understand Shakespeare. Only another human being can listen to Bach and feel what I feel. And that's my argument against killing. Not because life is sacred, or because human life is special. Just because the life any other human being experiences is closer to mine than that of any member of any other species.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Sunday, 20 January 2013
To the movies!
I will admit that as a product of my generation, I consume a lot more movies than my parents did at my age. This means that I have less time for reading, but I justify it (why I feel the need to justify this is an entirely different topic) by telling myself that a good movie can be as good as any novel. This is complete bullshit. Truth is, I love going to the cinema, sitting down and spending two whole hours sitting completely still watching a story unfold. And I don't mean that I like watching movies (which I do), I mean I like going to the cinema. I like sitting in a quiet room with the lights dimmed and seeing someone else's life playing on the screen. I love it. I like the silence, I like sitting still, I like the screen. All of it. I would go to the cinema at least three or four times a week if I could afford it. This is why it pisses me off when people ask me why do I go to the movies alone. It's not that I don't like going to the movies with my friends (depends on the movie though, there are films which I refuse to watch in a big group), but I honestly feel like going to the movies is a mostly lonely activity. If you do it right, you should be sittin in a room for two hours without talking to anyone, without noticing anything that isn't on the screen. As someone who enjoys talking, going to the movies with people directly affects the goal of silence and concentration. I like going to the movies on my own, sitting down and enjoying the whole film in silence. I am trying to stop eating in the cinema, because it annoys me when other people do it, and I always turn my phone off (again, it annoys me when someone checks their phone during a movie, it might not be making any noise but I can still see the bright screen).
Some of my best movie experiences have happened on my own in the movies. I watched "Frozen River" on my own (even though that was slightly scary, due to the guy sitting a few rows in front of me trying to make casual conversation about the time when he left the mental hospital), and I watched "Brave" on my own, which I enjoyed enormously. I have sat through loads of movies alone, and I've loved it. But it leads to a huge problem: who to discuss the movie with after? I might enjoy the experience of the cinema on my own, but I like to have someone to compare notes at the end with. I like being able to say: "That blew my mind", or "I thought that was shit", or "I'm not sure about that movie, I feel like I could have liked it if people hadn't made such a big deal out of it". This is impossible when you go on your own. A good movie is something I want to tell people about, I want to talk about for a while, analyze, enjoy even after it's done. A movie which I dislike, but which people can love is even better: it gives me material to argue about for hours. And yes, there is such a thing as a bad movie. I distrust people who say that "if it entertains them, then it's good". This is setting a very high standard for your entertainment or a very low standard for what you consider to be good. I am entertained by rom-coms. In fact, I love them and I watch as many of them as I can. They are emotional porn, and they make me tremendously happy (and sad, I cry like a baby when I watch them and I refuse to watch them with anyone else in the room, generally). I think they are the one genre I would take with me to a desert island (because it's the one I watch most). But I don't think they're good movies. I can't bring myself to class "The Ugly Truth" and "District 9" in the same category. Not to mention "Reservoir Dogs", or "It's Wonderful Life", or "High Fidelity", or "Manhattan", or "Saving Private Ryan", or "Apocalypse Now", or "Spellbound", or "Munich". These films are something else. They are not just entertainment, they tell a great story, and they tell it well.
And that's it. Movies are stories. Movies are yet another way to tell a story, and there's nothing I like better than a story. There is ritual in story telling, whether it be lying in bed listening to my dad telling me a bedtime story, or sitting in the cinema watching a film. There must be silence. There must be attention. There must be magic.
Some of my best movie experiences have happened on my own in the movies. I watched "Frozen River" on my own (even though that was slightly scary, due to the guy sitting a few rows in front of me trying to make casual conversation about the time when he left the mental hospital), and I watched "Brave" on my own, which I enjoyed enormously. I have sat through loads of movies alone, and I've loved it. But it leads to a huge problem: who to discuss the movie with after? I might enjoy the experience of the cinema on my own, but I like to have someone to compare notes at the end with. I like being able to say: "That blew my mind", or "I thought that was shit", or "I'm not sure about that movie, I feel like I could have liked it if people hadn't made such a big deal out of it". This is impossible when you go on your own. A good movie is something I want to tell people about, I want to talk about for a while, analyze, enjoy even after it's done. A movie which I dislike, but which people can love is even better: it gives me material to argue about for hours. And yes, there is such a thing as a bad movie. I distrust people who say that "if it entertains them, then it's good". This is setting a very high standard for your entertainment or a very low standard for what you consider to be good. I am entertained by rom-coms. In fact, I love them and I watch as many of them as I can. They are emotional porn, and they make me tremendously happy (and sad, I cry like a baby when I watch them and I refuse to watch them with anyone else in the room, generally). I think they are the one genre I would take with me to a desert island (because it's the one I watch most). But I don't think they're good movies. I can't bring myself to class "The Ugly Truth" and "District 9" in the same category. Not to mention "Reservoir Dogs", or "It's Wonderful Life", or "High Fidelity", or "Manhattan", or "Saving Private Ryan", or "Apocalypse Now", or "Spellbound", or "Munich". These films are something else. They are not just entertainment, they tell a great story, and they tell it well.
And that's it. Movies are stories. Movies are yet another way to tell a story, and there's nothing I like better than a story. There is ritual in story telling, whether it be lying in bed listening to my dad telling me a bedtime story, or sitting in the cinema watching a film. There must be silence. There must be attention. There must be magic.
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Top Fives
Top Five Favourite books
1. The Harry Potter books (fine, if I have to choose one it would have to be Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban) by J. K. Rowling
2. El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera (Love in Times of Cholera) by Gabriel García Márquez
3. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4. El Informe the Brodie (Dr Brodie's Report) by Jorge Luis Borges
5. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Top Five Subtitled films
1. The Seventh Seal
2. Le Couperet (Arcadia)
3. 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days
4. Let the right one in
5. The Apu trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apu Sansar)
Top Five films
1. Reservoir Dogs
2. District 9
3. The man who killed Liberty Valance
4. Spellbound
5. High Fidelity
Top Five dream jobs
1. Explorer (16th century)
2. British scientist (19th century)
3. Writer
4. Film director
5. Journalist or editor (for an interesting magazine, cinema or books, or music if I ever develop good taste in it)
Top Five songs
1. Yesterday by The Beatles
2. Romeo and Juliet by the Dire Straits
3. Mediterráneo by Joan Manuel Serrat
4. 19 Días y 500 Noches by Joaquín Sabina
5. Sunday Morning by Maroon 5
Top Five things I'd take to a desert island (non-essential)
1. A copy of Robinson Crusoe
2. A bottle of good rum
3. My iPhone (if I could charge it and had headphones with me)
4. A bed (with bedding)
5. Chocolate
1. The Harry Potter books (fine, if I have to choose one it would have to be Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban) by J. K. Rowling
2. El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera (Love in Times of Cholera) by Gabriel García Márquez
3. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4. El Informe the Brodie (Dr Brodie's Report) by Jorge Luis Borges
5. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Top Five Subtitled films
1. The Seventh Seal
2. Le Couperet (Arcadia)
3. 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days
4. Let the right one in
5. The Apu trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apu Sansar)
Top Five films
1. Reservoir Dogs
2. District 9
3. The man who killed Liberty Valance
4. Spellbound
5. High Fidelity
Top Five dream jobs
1. Explorer (16th century)
2. British scientist (19th century)
3. Writer
4. Film director
5. Journalist or editor (for an interesting magazine, cinema or books, or music if I ever develop good taste in it)
Top Five songs
1. Yesterday by The Beatles
2. Romeo and Juliet by the Dire Straits
3. Mediterráneo by Joan Manuel Serrat
4. 19 Días y 500 Noches by Joaquín Sabina
5. Sunday Morning by Maroon 5
Top Five things I'd take to a desert island (non-essential)
1. A copy of Robinson Crusoe
2. A bottle of good rum
3. My iPhone (if I could charge it and had headphones with me)
4. A bed (with bedding)
5. Chocolate
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