Similarity

 Shepherd's pie and cottage pie, tangerine and mandarin, Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan. The world is full of things that are so alike they are practically indistinguishable. Though this state of affairs is by and large fine, there are moments where such confusing likenesses can cause considerable harm, such as the similarity between "acceptable banter" and "unacceptable offensive insults" or "people who are capable of verbal battles" and "individuals who give the outward appearance of being able to handle a bit of verbal jousting but are in fact easily offended". These two examples especially, when mixed together, create the perfect cocktail of social awkwardness and disaster (the sort of cocktail that leaves you feeling the sickening rocking storm of extreme inebriation without first allowing you to experience the pleasant gentle drift of mild tipsiness).

 In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.

 Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.

 When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."

 To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.

 She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.

 Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future,  had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.

 This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests  by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.