The Domestication of Suffering

Emile-Edouard Mouchy, Vivisection of a dog (1832). Wellcome Library, London.

Cogito, ergo sum / I think, therefore I am.—René Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637)

Sentio, ergo sum / I feel—hence, I am:

the soft answer to the "hard problem,"

so-called, of sapient consciousness.

Vivisecting dogs, Descartes missed,

it, shut his ears to howls of agony—

reason a blind torturer. He

tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,

Isaiah says. And so, too, evolution can!

It’s just as bad as bad as you suppose.

It's plainer than a pikestaff's nose.

Our reasoning will never turn

to answers we don’t wish to learn!

Domesticating dogs and corn,

you also bring in feeling's spawn.

Pain's these days of a higher grade,

sold in barrels—refined—well-paid.

And when you fill up at the source

remember Mother's old recourse.

Thus it was always meant to be:

“Think universal GDP.”

Shakyamuni knew that well,

as do other saints of stars 'round hell.

“It goes to feed the moon,” said Mr. G.

—a smart-ass kidder he loved to be!

Yet, in the salience of this joke,

there’s more (no doubt) than lunar yolk.

Saturday, March 21, 2026