A casual office talk several days ago often came up to my mind. One guy was talking about animals, usually a safe and pleasant topic, when another one, a lady, suddenly stood up and said, “Of all the animals I hate the lion most, especially males. You know what? Once a male lion gains the position of a king, he possesses all the females! What is more hideous, all he does after that is being the king and does little hunting. The females have to do all the hunting and raise kids for him.” Hearing this, I couldn’t help smiling and blurted out, “They’re animals. And this is their way of living. You can’t say it’s reasonable or unreasonable, fair or unfair, just because of that kind of behavior.” “I know it’s natural, but I have the right to dislike these animals, don’t I?” There seemed to be a strong smell of gunpowder in the air, so I just said, “Well, …” and then trailed off.

Maybe it was just a small talk, which should not be taken seriously. However, it did remind me of a conversation between me and my mother. “Is it cruel to kill pigs for meat? Don’t you often tell me not to kill animals? Didn’t you say even insects and plants are also living things like us.” My mother thought for a while and then gave me this reply: “Pigs are different. Pigs are meant to be killed for meat. Without enough meat, how can we grow strong and healthy?” I was convinced back then.

Later when I was watching “Animal World” on TV, I saw many wild buffaloes being killed by meant eating animals like tigers and lions in Africa. I felt very sad. Such great empathy did I have with these poor buffaloes that I even told myself I ought to help them when I grew up. More recently I watched “The Lion King” whose lines gave me a very good explanation. The old king was educating his young son, “Simba, everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.” “But dad, don’t we eat the antelope?” Simba asked. “Yes, Simba. But let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass and the antelope eat the grass, and so we are all connected in the great circle of life.”

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Human will never invent more beautiful, more simple or more direct than Nature does, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.” As Hegel put it, “All that is real is rational and all that is rational is real.” I believe that all that exists deserve our respect. They don’t care if we like them or not because they just don’t need to. We have no right to judge them by our standards. All we need to do is respect, not to disturb the delicate balance of nature. Never should we humans overestimate ourselves. Never forget the fact that we’re also animals. We’re all residents of the planet---the Earth. We have to share this planet, the only one that is suitable for life to exist in the whole solar system.