Joys Of A Chimpanzee Who Lives At The Zoo, In Which I Might Not Share But Nonetheless Understand And Even Respect

Previously in this series: Too many visitors, dinner a little later than usual, grass looks wet, human I usually associate with food visits without bringing me food: Problems I have that a gorilla who lives at the zoo might also have.

The joys of a chimpanzee might not always be mine. Some of them appear foreign to me, at times even frightening.

Yet some of that which pleases him pleases me too — or at least I can positively relate to these pleasures through the judicious application of metaphor.

I would not care, for example, to fish termites out of their nest with a stick for my lunch, no matter how hungry I was. But the chimpanzee, I have been reliably informed, does this on a regular basis, and even appears to enjoy it.

Yet do I myself not feel pleasure when, on a warm afternoon, I successfully make myself a tuna fish sandwich? And have I not used a tool of my own (can opener) to extract food from my environment (the can of tuna), just as my brother the chimp has? Can anything which gratifies my cousins in the forest be truly alien to me?