Like contempletive blind people daring to touch an elephant and report their small limited findings of what is clearly standing in their path, we all give a viewpoint of whats up with thing we have decided to call an elephant.

When the elephant is quiet, it tenses its ears and listens beyond the horizon, when Ebbie pulled its tail it made a deep rolling groan.
When Spaw pulled what he thought was a tail it bellowed and shrieked so loud it scared all of us. When Bobert stroked a tusk he thought of a mobile forest. When 999 thought he found a mouth, it smell bad and there were no teeth. When Amos touched its lips he noticed a tongue touching him back and thought, everyone must surely know this is an elephant. When Max felt the elephant he downloaded and backed it up. When Joe felt it he thought it was overly aggressive but was wrong. When little hawk felt its foot he went on and on but the elephant got the jist of it right away. When Voltair touched the elephant, he laughed.

But none of them lived in the dimension of time to realize that the elephant had seen its baby fall lifeless 3 days ago. All the other elephants registered their grief and concern. The younger ones tried to lift the lifeless baby fifty or more times and would come back and try again.

Life senses compassion but it can be driven crazy with uncaring unrelenting predatory attacks until life lashes out blindly at the blind. When land food and water grow short and we are hunted and killed day after day year after year we remember. We remember until that is all we have for a memory. Being attacked. Uncaring encounters. The rare helping hands that betray us over time. The memory of the child and its valient struggle. We never forget.
Perhaps if we could we would not go crazy and not go to war.

I don't know if the elephant is slower or faster. I don't know how massive it is or where in the universe it is going. I know there are scars unseen. I know fewer human people ever pause to lift the lifeless child of someone outside their family.
All the elephants do.

Attributing our humanity to another animal is not a compliment. Its not even a cute thing. For if you think man is in god's image, and if it is true... you are as sure as shit going to get mightily stomped.