I like to wonder if the story of the Garden of Eden is a metaphor (Simile? Allegory? Parable? I never get this right.) for the development of the ego, and, by extension, the recognition that things we do affect other beings in negative ways, and, by further extension, the realization of right and wrong.

I just wonder about it, please don’t send me angry emails.

I like how animals just do what they do.

Dogs eat the same food every single day and they are just happy to have it. Wolves kill baby deer and ants devour butterflies. There’s no right or wrong to it, it’s just what they do.

I also like that, as humans, we do think about right and wrong and, for the most part, try to do the right thing.

No matter what the cynics and doomsayers proclaim, the vast, vast majority of people you meet do enough of the right thing that they don’t rob or kill you.

The problem with all of this is that our mind likes to generalize, and turns all sorts of things that are not matters of right and wrong into matters of right and wrong.

A lot more is neutral than we like to think.

The rain is just rain, seasons change and sometimes we are hungrier than we would like to be. It’s part of life. Complaining and focusing on how we wish things were does not help anything.

Animals understand this.