This is an idea for a book about anti-husbandrism, which came out
of two things I read in the last week.
One was
something about "Trancention" I think they called it which in the
context of the technological singularity would be the possible
future
where intelligence just gets smaller
and smaller and basically just
disappears into the interstices, possibly leaving this universe alone
by receding into quantumness, or something like that, but
basically
just leaving the future alone which I found refreshing.
And the
other
was a book by Caroline Knapp who died in 2002 and who was one
of
my childhood heroes and who could really write, but the thing by
her
that I read or am starting to read now is a book called "Pack of
Two"
which is basically about how great dogs are and how cute and
cudely-wudely they are and how they served her purpose which
was
to find love.
Now I haven't read the end of the book so she might go
into what I am about to say, but so far she hasn't. But what
occurred
to me, as a person who like Caroline Knapp finds themself as an
adult but with the inability to get along with other humans, is that
it
might not be the best idea to, in the absence of someone big to
pick
on, try to go out and find, and then write a book celebrating the
process of finding someone little to pick on. Ok so that may not
be
what she was thinking when she wrote the book, and it may be
wrong-headed of me to think that way, but in thinking about it I
realized that I don't know of a popular defense of living alone
without pets, or that having pets and indulging our tendency to
want
to manage and oversee things is not just part of but the crux of
the
problem. So extending it from there, someone should write a
pop-
psy book mapping out the path from living alone without pets,
through mineralitarianism, to the eventual trancention.
My apologies to Caroline Knapp who's Alice K column inspired me
and who's Drinking book I resonate with, but I am not a dog or a
cat
person, and I don't think it is an awful thing.
What do you think I am, some kind of a jerk or something? And
this! And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the
paddle game, this magazine and the chair...I don't need one other
thing, except my dog (growwwwwl). Ok, I don't need my dog.