addendum

I wrote this in my journal in June. It seems pertinent to my issues with Life of Pi:

This afternoon I walked my dogs at this park along a pond. We go there frequently because it is one of the city parks where dogs are allowed off leash. One of my dogs killed a muskrat. It screamed - do most animals scream when they are killed? I tried to get my dog away but he was intent on doing it in. I ran over to grab his collar. I heard him break the muskrat's neck.The thing is, he is just killing it for sport - he doesn't want to eat it. Secondly, at home this is the kinder and gentler of my 2 dogs.

The whole incident got me thinking about "human nature." Can we really expect much more from humans than my dog? I guess we do expect more, but how much more do we really get? Humans kill other animals and even other humans all the time, thoughtlessly, just because they are there. Furthermore, many people who engage in such behaviors are not so thoughtless and destructive all the time. When I got home from the walk and my killer dog curled up with me on the couch I felt that the only real difference between myself and the mother of a murderer (apart from the obvious) is that I can't say honestly that I believe my dog doesn't have it in him to do such a terrible thing. We should expect the best and the worst in human behavior - and not just in general, in the behavior of each person. In my life, some of the people I have been closest to and cherished most turned out to also be "bad people" - e.g. child molesters, spouse abusers. Perhaps this is why I am very uncommitted to my assessments of people and why I am rarely surprised by anything people do.