One Cannot Watch Chimpanzee Infants For Long

I'm Highly Political. I Spend An Awful Lot Of Time In The U.s. Trying To Influence Decision-makers. But I Don't Feel In Tune With British Politics.

Is It Not Possible That The Chimpanzees Are Responding To Some Feeling Like Awe? A Feeling Generated By The Mystery Of Water; Water That Seems Alive, Always Rushing Past Yet Never Going, Always The Same Yet Ever Different. Was It Perhaps Similar Feelings Of Awe That Gave Rise To The First Animistic Religions, The Worship Of The Elements And The Mysteries Of Nature Over Which There Was No Control? Only When Our Prehistoric Ancestors Developed Language Would It Have Been Possible To Discuss Such Internal Feelings And Create A Shared Religion.

Words Can Enhance Experience, But They Can Also Take So Much Away. We See An Insect And At Once We Abstract Certain Characteristics And Classify It - A Fly. And In That Very Cognitive Exercise, Part Of The Wonder Is Gone. Once We Have Labeled The Things Around Us We Do Not Bother To Look At Them So Carefully. Words Are Part Of Our Rational Selves, And To Abandon Them For A While Is To Give Freer Reign To Our Intuitive Selves.

When I Look Back Over My Life It's Almost As If There Was A Plan Laid Out For Me - From The Little Girl Who Was So Passionate About Animals Who Longed To Go To Africa And Whose Family Couldn't Afford To Put Her Through College. Everyone Laughed At My Dreams. I Was Supposed To Be A Secretary In Bournemouth.

Chimpanzees Are Incredibly Intelligent. They Can Learn More Than 400 Signs Of American Sign Language. They Have Memories For Spatial Distribution, Like Numbers On A Tv Screen, Way Better Than Ours. You Come Onto The Emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Fear, And Despair - All The Things For Which I Was Accused Of Being Anthropomorphic When I Ascribed Them To Chimpanzees.