Being passive and obedient to authorative figures is a terrible affliction

Last night I suffered from passive authority-fearing behaviour which caused my cat to suffer tremendously unneccessarily.

I wonder why I am like this? Is it the way I was brought up? The culture of my country?

My wonderful young cat, Josie, who is only about 8 months old, was bitten by a stray cat that continouly makes a fearsome presence in the garden of my flat complex.
Last night for the second time in 2 months the tom bit Josie, this time with 2 puncture wounds. She was terrified and bleeding slightly, but she gathered herself quite quickly. However, fearful of infections and possibly HIV, I took to the emergency vet.

A young uncertain man greeted me and insisted on taking her away to be shaved. He said something about clearing the wounds. I really wanted to be present, but he was highly discouraging so I relented. But I thought he would come back after shaving her. Sitting in the waiting room, I heard one and then several screams from my cat in the distance. At first I thought it was simply being shaved over the wound. Then I hoped that there was a parrot or other animals in the clinic. I couldn't take it any longer and started pacing about trying to find where I could get access to where she was. The hygenic operating area said "staff only" so I obeyed. I knew that he'd taken another route to the theatre but I was again too fearful to go through without permission. So I asked the receptionist if that was my cat screaming. And he said yes it was, but it was normal and it was because of the injections. I was unhappy but let that quieten me.

Josie came back terrified, shell-shocked with wounds cut open. Flesh about 1cm long and 5 mm wide was cut from the wound and was leaking blood. No wonder she was crying so much! I had no idea. I said nothing and meekly took my injured animal home. She was so much worse off. She hid in the cupboard, was painful and sullen.

What I find particularly disturbing is that when I took her to the day clinic the last time she was bitten, there was no fuss at all. No shaving, no cutting, no screaming. It was over in 5 minutes and Josie didn't even cry.

I feel like I allowed her to be tortured for at least 30 minutes and did nothing because I was too afraid to ask questions and see for myself what was going on. It's pathetic. It's my beloved pet and it's my right to know what is happening. Why didn't I insist on being present and informed of the proceedings?
Why because I was trusting and fearful of the vet. But who is the vet, just a young kid straight out of varsity. I have my own judgement, experience and mind and I have a right to use it.

Motto of the day: Don't be passive when you know something is wrong! Don't be afraid to ask questions.

I'm back with questions

After a long break from blogger - nearly a year - a comment on this blog reminded me that my blog still exists and inspired to post a few thoughts.

Here are a few things I've been thinking about:

1. Are conservationists hanging onto something (i.e. keeping nature pristine) that can never remain as is, and by trying so hard to protect this "sacred" state are we causing stagnation? Are we like those people who cannot accept and embrace change? There are good arguments for keeping nature as is. One commonly used argument is that nature in its pristine state is essential for maintaining micro- and macro-scale ecosystem services that sustain our existence (e.g. wetlands, mountain water catchments, soil production, genetic diversity, etc.) There are also spiritual and ethical arguments - for me the preservation of all the diverse animal species is one. But I'm not sure how pristine it needs to be. I have a feeling that pollution is bad and filling up the entire landscape with monoculture farms, urban structures and garbage is also detrimental to our environment and our psychology. But I don't have quantitative figures.

2. I have this feeling that it is unethical to create a world where species can no longer survive, where the Earth is no longer their home. I believe it is unethical to kill animals (via hunting or habitat destruction) when its not necessary for our survival. But sometimes when I watch nature documentaries, filled with the desperate struggle of eating and being eaten in pretty gruesome and painful ways, I wonder why we would want to preserve something so cruel, something that causes so much suffering. An Anaconda slowly strangles its victims to death. As the victim breathes out, it tightens its coils. Others snakes swallow their prey live. Lions do not have effective killing mechanisms and sometimes just hang on until the victim expires or they start eating it alive. Nature is inhumane and filled with suffering! I don't think the individuals are cruel - they have no choice like us humans. But they were not equipped with kind and humane ways of killing and eating their prey. Why do we want to preserve this kind of existence? But as a friend of mine pointed out, humans do inflict this kind of cruelty on each other all the time and we still want to continue existence. This is true, yet I always hope that somehow humanity will elevate itself to more kind ways of living. This doesn't seem possible now, but Stuart believes that through artificial intelligence and neurological enhancement we could make ourselves better people – I hope so.