Strange Things I Really Believe

There’s a Higher Thought question that goes “What is the strangest thing—or one of the strangest things—you’ve ever believed?” 

But I think a better question could be “What is something you currently believe that people might find odd?” (And I wonder if Jill and Susan might agree that that’s a better question). 

Anyway, here are a few of my own beliefs that reasonable people might … um … dispute:

1. I believe animals are far smarter than we realize, smarter than we can even imagine.  When I was young, it was common to insult someone’s intelligence by calling them a “birdbrain.” I never seem to hear that expression anymore, in this era of microprocessors. It wouldn’t make sense now because who the heck knows what can fit within the contours of a bird’s brain? (Perhaps scientists think they know, and scientists are pretty smart, but I would still cleave to my agnosticism on the issue of what birds can think about.)
   
   (And dogs and cats, jeez, don’t even get me started.)
   
2. Before humans developed speech, we communicated via telepathy. I’m absolutely sure of this. I’ve had a handful of clearly telepathic episodes in my life (starting as a small child, so don’t go ascribing this to drugs) and I’m convinced it’s a latent capacity in us all, gone slack from underuse and dependence on spoken and written language. 
   
   Or maybe actually – for all I know – the capacity is a lot less latent in some individuals (or tribes?) than others.
   
3. Sometimes, especially when I’m lonely, I find myself spontaneously fantasizing imaginary conversations I could be having with certain people. I am sure billions of other people do this too. Do you do it? (I’ve never actually asked anyone else if they do it. I’m only thinking of this now.)
   
4. Here is a truncated, chopped-up quote by Thomas Merton, but you’ll get the gist:
   

I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts … the person that each one is in God’s eyes … If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed … we would fall down and worship each other.”

Or, as my Buddhist godson put it in a poem: “Let the light in our eyes shine, so when any being looks upon any other being, they are so filled with awe that selfishness becomes unthinkable and extinct.”

I believe this is possible, though I don’t think I’ll see it in my lifetime. 

It may take millennia, or eons, but it’ll occur.

(Now I imagine my Buddhist godson saying, “It’s already happening. It’s happening all the time. It’s happening right now.”
I tell him, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And he cracks up.)