i want to talk about the goldfish i saw in petco today. it’s a pet store. we all know what petco is. but maybe some of us don’t.
i was in petco with p▒▒▒ and h▒▒▒▒, after we had stopped at the mall. we dropped off my car....
anywayyyyyyyyyyy, how does anyone end up anywhere?
if i were to explain how we ended up at the petco, i’d have to start with the fucking big bang, and then i’d have to explain what came before the big bang. nobody really cares. it doesn’t change how we live our lives. so i’ll just start the story by saying we were in a petco. if you care to know how we got there, take it up with your maker, the unchanging changer, the one who set all this stuff in motion. the beginningless beginner, whatever you wanna call ‘em.
so we were in there, and we were looking at all the animals, because those are the things of most interest in a place like that. when you’re somewhere there are living things up for the buying, they are clearly, clearly, clearly far more interesting than any of the plasticky products that are being offered—more interesting, even, than the big vat of
when we made our way to the fish section—which was, of course, the final section of living things that we explored, because all the other kinds of animals are of more interest, mammals being the most interesting, and then birds, and then reptiles, and finally the fish—p▒▒▒ said something about how there were a lot of goldfish in one tank, something about it being crowded in there. an employee named r▒▒ chimed in, ‘oh, those aren’t supposed to be pets.’
a sort of non sequitur if you ask me.
‘those are just feeder fish,’ she continued, ‘so we abide by less strict ethical standards in how we store them.’
okay.... but wait, do you see that that is also a problem?
‘these things are poorly bred, and they’re not very intelligent, and (this is the implication) it’s okay because their whole purpose in life is to be eaten.’
i guess it’s consistent with american culture, which is extremely permissive of chickens and other livestock living in incredibly close quarters. it makes sense that we would keep the animals we feed to other animals in even closer quarters.
the problem i have with american culture is why do we not care about these lives? why are they so expendable to us? why is it so easy for the employee to get out of this ethical bind by just saying they’re feeders?
i don’t buy it, r▒▒. i really don’t buy it.
mind you, each fish is
which also seems a little wild. of course, the concept of buying a living being is already wild, but then to be able to buy it for so cheap feels even worse. it feels even worse than what is already a sort of bad, spiritually depraved kind of thing.
that’s what it is: spiritually depraved. because, r▒▒, i’m sure you wouldn’t like to get reborn as one of the feeder fish, would you? to be something so poorly bred, so not-intelligent, but something that has the potential to grow into something a foot long? (that’s one of the first things she said about those fish, is that they shouldn’t be kept as pets, but sometimes people do keep them as pets, and they grow to be a foot long, and that’s somehow gross.)
r▒▒, would you want to be reborn as one of these fish, and not have a chance to explore anything that is natural, no shot at any kind of transcendence in your lifetime, and presumably get stuck in a cycle of getting reborn as feeder fishes because you’re karmically inert?
that’s the problem, i think. this tank of fish is karmically inert. there are hardly any opportunities for anything to happen that would generate any karma.
i want the karma to spill out of that tank. i had an impulse somewhere along the way, staring at the fish in the tank, to tip it over and watch the water and the fishes pour out onto the petco floor. i got up close to them and noticed how some of them were double the size of the average fish in there, and some of them were a kind of silvery-grayish color rather than the orange-gold. there’s so much variation in there. so much life. they are alive. i didn’t tip it over.
life is more precious than most people make it out to be. life is way more special, i think, and there is a whole
the level of complexity within one of those feeder fish, whose destiny is to be eaten by who knows what, is infinite. but the complexity is reduced to 'the ethics are different because their whole purpose is to be eaten.'
where does it end? i know there are limits, but it seems like it could be a slippery slope.
we do the same thing with chickens. we allow ourselves to do this 'poor breeding' thing and call them not-intelligent and make them live in close quarters, and we do it all in the name of feeding them to us. we suspend ethics, all because these things are just supposed to sustain other, more important life.
and there it is. at the foundation of all of this is a hierarchichization of life itself. i think it’s fucked. i don’t agree with it, and i don’t support it, but i’m too much of a coward to have tipped over that tank of fish.
but look, dude, you’re gonna tip over that tank, and then what? they’re all just gonna die..... and you know, there are others like me out there in the world, the antagonistic type who hears that they are feeder fish, or sees how cheap they are, and buys one and lets it grow into an adult, into a foot-long. right? so, i made the better decision in letting sleeping dogs lie, allowing for the possibility of some of these fish to grow into foot-longs, rather than doing some act of property damage by destroying the tank.... you know?
but, i suppose, in a perfect world, or in a better world, we might feel more confident in letting ourselves take these actions.... to do things like freeing the animals from petco... to free the fish.
i will go back to a petco someday, and i will buy a feeder goldfish, and i will provide enriching environments for it, and i will allow it to live in a much bigger thing. i will give it... i will find a really, really large thing.... a huge thing... a huge thing, indeed... a huge thing...
i think i’m attracted karmically to animals and people who are doomed. i’m interested in feeders. i believe there are feeder equivalents among humans. and wouldn’t there have to be, and isn’t that part of the slippery slope? if we as a society are willing and brusquely able to take these lives for granted and say it’s okay for them to live in close quarters because they’re ‘just feeders,’ of course this must already be happening with humans. there are people who are shunted to the worst, most close-quartered living situations imaginable. there are people living on the streets, and they are also designated a subclass, but it’s okay, because they’re homeless... because they’re a drug addict... because they’re a prisoner... because because because.
amoral morality is so fucking stupid, bro. i’m sick of moraltiy. it’s so inconsistent. nobody has good morals. there is no such thing as good morals. but people build their lives around morals, and their lives are ridiculous as a result. i do it, too.
(aside: the drama is a really cool movie. it’s about morality and how it’s a farce and doesn’t matter and people in their naked truths are always going to be more interesting and more real than any kind of moral code that we attempt to inscribe in them.)
so, yes, i’m over morals, because what are morals in a society like this, where the petco employee looks you in the face and tells you that it’s okay for a hundred goldfish to live in a little tank because they’re just feeders, and it’s okay for chickens to live in boxes stacked on top of each other because they’re just broilers, and the people gotta eat, and the free market demands it, and if ever the free market decides that we shouldn’t do these things, then and only then should we stop.
it comes back to capitalism in that way that everything does, in that way that we can all intuitively recognize that it does. it’s so recognizable that it’s almost trite to even mention it. just another case that comes back to capitalism being
the thing that makes everything else perverse. living things being bought and sold for fifty cents, hello, come on... it’s just... yeah, one of those things that... you don’t...
if you have anything to say about morals, if you think i’m immoral, if you think anything is immoral, i’m already asleep, and i’m already actually in REM, and i’m already dreaming of something else, so i can’t hear you, and the most you’re doing is adding some weird sounds to the dream, which my subconscious hardly registers. i’m already dreaming of being a feeder, being reborn in a tank in a petco, and there are a hundred other things that look like me, and we are all in kindergarten together,
we are all about to embark on an amazing journey into life, we all have expectations for the future which are not even known to us but are more instinctive. we have biological impulses and imperatives which drive us to keep on living, but we are subject to the whims of the free market, to the whims of the person who has fifty cents in their pocket, who can buy us and feed us to god knows what, or do really anything with us. they can take us and do anything, and we will never know the intentions or the aims of the people under whose control we are. we will never know it. all we know is that we want to live our lives. maybe some of us want to reproduce... maybe.... maybe.... but we’ll...... we won’t have the pleasure. we won’t have a fair shot at it, will we?
i look out the window and see the sun, the northest star there is, the thing that tells me to go outside and see these things in person, to see the horrors beyond comprehension and try comprehending them. the sun is setting, and soon it will be nighttime, and i will be left to contemplate these things in the darkness.