Monday, September 11, 2006

The Dairy Cow's Mind

I would imagine that a dairy cow doesn't think about all that much in any given day. It hunkers over to a patch of hay or grass and eats, investing a great portion of its time chewing regurgitated food while standing beside an equally dull comrade in a stinky field in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if the cows know where their milk goes after the massive machines suck it from them. I wonder if they form some kind of attachment to the machine, as though its a mechanical calf, a child the cow is instinct-bound to support and nurture.

I would imagine that the mind of a dairy cow is rather devoid of any abstract thought or originality. If we could peer into a the minds of a herd of cows, I'm not sure we'd be able to tell them apart aside from the fact that one might be thinking about eating while another might be thinking about the ideal place to lay down. The mind of a cow is devoid of the multiplicity of thoughts that should be floating around a person's brain at any given time.

I'm feeling a bit like a dairy cow these days. My mind is a rather boring place to be, devoid of the incessant chatter and occasional brilliance that used to dwell there. It's not that mundane things have replaced the extraordinary or that what was once extraordinary has become mundane. It's more like a resounding silence on all things, great and small.


|