A PIGEON'S FEAST

People are funny creatures. I think, and I have no basis of really confirming this, that people are the only creatures where, even if you put them all together into the same space and give them nothing to do, they have this amazing ability to act as though no one else is there. Behaviorists may call it isolation, philosophers may call it self-absorption, sociologists may call it "private space", but whatever it is, I'm convinced that it is odd.

Pigeons don't seem to do that. At least not from what I can tell. I came off the subway today, having had my private space violated unapologetically by members of my own species, and I saw a group of pigeons, each pecking away at a magnificent feast, or "litter" depending on your perspective. And though each scrounged for food pretty much on its own, it seemed to me very much a communal affair. It was something they did "together." What a great word, "together." And I thought, what curious creatures we are, we humans.

We're perhaps the only creatures in the whole world that have made it our business to deny what we were meant to be for the sake of striking out on our own. A curious thing, we humans.