As I walked back from Professor Brooks' office hours today, right at the corner of the academic quad I saw two squirrels copulating. I shouldn't say copulating though because it was the most sporadic and unusual attempt at procreation that I have ever seen. Needless to say, I had a Taoist moment and nonchallantly observed the two squirrels for some time. There right by some shrubs on the quad the male proceeded to mount the female for maybe a second or two. Then, as if a concussion grenade went off in the area, they both dispersed a short distance. The female began to climb a short tree, only to be followed by the male and eventually knocked right off the branch. The male then jumped down and repeated his brief moment of sexual unity, only for the two to disperse and repeat. This fascinated me. These squirrels had absoultely no idea what they were doing, nor did they have any sense of propriety as to how to go about the act. But how could they, being simple mammals and lacking the cranial capacity that humans have? All they have is instincts to guide them and nothing more. It was then that I established a relationship from what I saw to what we covered in class that day:

The essence of being human is the ability to engage in a choosing process. Everything is a desire that expresses itself in the process of legitimization, which is pragmatic and transcending. That is to say that humans can rationalize–we can make educated decisions if we so choose to, but even that is a choice. Animals do not possess this ability to choose–they were not endowed with a higher intelligence that allows them do anything but respond to their surroundings. Basically, humans are free in a way that allows us not to be bond to our instincts like other entities. But even this comes at a price. As ignorance is bliss (correction–a narrow horizon of ignorance), what then do we make of knowledge and the ability to choose? We make nothing of it, only we utilize it. In this way do we further humanize ourselves. We reduce our path empirically to managable behavior–benefits and losses. This reductive view allows us to cope with our extreme boon of the ability to choose. However, when you supress your ideas and values because it's easy to you so, you become a political being subject to the dictation of others. This is clearly delusional, yet many people do it. We do it because humans are spiritual beings and it is difficult to expand in a contracting world, however pragmatic it might seem. The spiritual journey is the quest for the unknown. As humans are in desperate need of achieving some sort of certainty, though it is impossible and at best it is an optimal probability, the reduce their world to pragmatic means. We want security over ambiguity, but that is the peril of desire. What's at stake, however, is how we legitimize that desire and if we deceive ourselves through reduction or expand our world past empirical levels.