I took my kid to the zoo today, and pondered a couple of interesting things while at the tiger exhibit. When you go into the tiger exhibit, you are in an enclosed room with a lot of other people. The room has big glass windows. Outside the windows is a beautiful hillside with a pond and a lot of nice places for a tiger to relax. And of course there is the sleek, powerful, beautiful tiger. And he's out there on the hill, in his element (or at least a small version of his element), looking in at this crowded roomful of humans. All of a sudden I got this upside down feeling - who is in the zoo right now, the tiger, or us?
And then the zoo worker was explaining things to us about the tiger over the loudspeaker. And she said that tigers in the wild typically only live until the age of seven, on average, when their lives are cut short by poachers. But that here at the zoo, the tigers live out their normal life span of 14 to 16 years, similar to domestic cats. And that as the tigers get old, they get diseases and other issues of old age, just like every other creature. And that its really important to for the zookeepers to keep the tigers' diets in check, because if they don't, the tigers will develop all kinds of problems that they don't get when they don't become overweight. Hmmm.
Sounds familiar... But the problem for us as humans is that no one can control our diets except for us. And to the extent our diets are "controlled" by other people, corporations, or whatever your viewpoint is on the food that is most easily available, those people/corporations are not benevolent like the zookeepers and looking out for our best interest and optimal health.
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