People have a tendency to personify things, for example humans are very good at spotting faces in inanimate objects like...

It's called anthropomorphism. It's actually very common, for example in everyday language we have a tendency to describe inanimate objects with emotional adjectives i.e. my car sounded unhappy this morning when I started it ect. Here is an article on why we anthropomorphize. It shows that your behavior is in no way unique or weird, but a very common and normal part of being human.

Well,Wolfie already knew the cause of it and what it was called.She only wondered it others took it to the level that she tends to.

Originally Posted by ~Wild Spirit Wolf~

Well,Wolfie already knew the cause of it and what it was called.She only wondered if others took it to the level that she tends to.

Pushing the extreme would be falling in love with inanimate objects, like the woman who married a wall and cheated on it with a garden fence, or the crazy guy on TLC who told his father on national TV he was sleeping with his car O_o...
That's crazy. What you're doing is just cute and normal, instead of odd and weird like the folks above lol.

Oh,Wolfie remembers that guy and his car! It was on that weird obsessions show.Strange stuff.

my room mate thinks im silly because i insist my bear's, stuffed bears, have names. adn that their 'alive' i mean im not altra careful with them because i know i can't hurt them. but i don't go out of my way to harm them ethir. and because i have anxiety issues i carry them around sometimes with me, I have spring time and patience, Cinnamon and teddy, i even hav ea few other types of stuffed toys and id on't EVER get rid of them. people are always telling me im to old for teddys and or dolls and so forth.

That's because it is silly star... :) but the cute silly not the weird silly.
The fact you still keep teddy bears and stuffed animals simply shows that you didn't abandon your inner child like everyone else did.
I still have my stuffed animal and I take care of it. Granted it's stuffed away in a drawer but it's still in good condition. I always make sure to give it to the girl I plan to spend the rest of my life with (took it back from the last one)

And something I just realized... I don't think I EVER named it O.o

well at least its cute 'nods' I don't mind even if it's weird silly. they make me feel better, and thei rhte best friends. because they never judge you. there there for you in the good times or the bad and aww poet that's so SWEET. and I never named teddy. she's a purple teddy bear with a hat that's part of her head and ribbons. me and my cat have WORDS over her cause she's always try ign to eat poor teddy's ribbons. 'glares at nala' silly cat. and then there's my snow flake collection. their all polar bears done up for christmas. up until thre years ago mom used to get me one every christmas. 'nods' I loved them. heck i looked forward to christmas JUST for the teddy bears. didn't care about all the other gifts wouldn't care if that was all i got.

Wolfie doesn't think it's silly.Wolfie has named every single stuffed animal and toy she has ever gotten-and that numbers in the hundreds.She treats them well and loves them all equally.Those stuffed animals got Wolfie through some hard times: times when she had absolutely no friends at all.Her stuffies were her best friends during those long years.

hmm.. I never felt empathy to dolls. Not as much as you do. The other way around, I loved to paint them, and those that I didn't like I liked to ruin.

I think it's cute if you're a kid/teen, but if you're a grown up i'd say it's kinda strange. But who cares? As long as it makes you happy so what? (:

Wolfie is 22 years old.But then,Wolfie has always known she was different.That's how she met her friend,and that's how Wolfie likes it.Three cheers for being strange! Hip hip,hooray! Hip hip,hooray! Hip hip,HOORAY!

Yep ^_^ everyone are strange in different ways. At least yours is cute and harmless (;

lol true

Well the weirder you are the more you fit in here...

I don't think that's anywhere near as strange as people want you to think.

I have the same issue, especially with plushies. I feel like they enjoy when one does something loving with them, even if it would be very violent if they were a real animal - at least so long as they're not torn - and get upset when someone, say, uses them as a punching bag when they're angry. I have a few plushies that I've sort of characterized into their own beings. I am a 26-year old man.

The only bugs I'll kill are venomous ones and even then I'll feel bad for it.

I'm a pescetarian based on the fact that most invertebrates, particularly shellfish, have such underdeveloped nervous systems that they are incapable of feeling much pain - yet I still feel bad not only for eating shellfish, but root vegetables as well.

...which REALLY sucks because I'm part Irish.

But, I still live a pretty healthy life. I don't make myself crazy over every inanimate object I've ever wronged and I don't put the perceived needs of things over the real needs of people, so I think I'm good.

Stellar,that is good! Wolfie still eats meat,though she can't eat it if she thinks of the animal it used to be.But she just thinks of it as the circle of life,really.As long as nothing gets wasted.Like eggs.Wolfie gets so upset when eggs get wasted,because they could have been born and alive.But instead they were frozen and killed and packaged,all just to be eaten,which would be fine if they were but they weren't so it's like their lives were wasted for no reason and it's just wrong just WRONG

Most of the eggs you can get in stores are infertile, though. It's...basically the chicken's period; no more a potential baby than that.

I still don't like to eat them because the egg industry is unnecessarily cruel to both the chickens and the workers. That's another reason I eat shellfish actually - particularly crab; the people who go out crab fishing do it because they love the thrill, rather than because they need the below-minimum-wage pay that a lot of farm workers get.

I use leather though. It feels more respectful to an animal that has already been killed for food to use all of its body - rather than just cutting it up and discarding what we don't want to eat. It also kinda feels like bringing a little bit of it back to life, to have a part of it used for something more permanent than a meal. My boyfriend happens to be working on a goat leather bag for his pencils - we're kind of considering it a friend already. We both happen to really like goats - but he's from a culture that is equally likely to see goats as friend or food, so we're kind of desensitized to the idea that yes, they do get killed for meat, so yes, we should use the byproducts.

Yes,yes,that's exactly how Wolfie has to think of it! Animal serves man and man serves animal.Man raises animal and then animal repays man by providing food and other things.It is wrong if humans waste the animal's life,but if they use every usable bit,then it's okay.Like the native Americans did.And humans should thank the land for it's contribution,too.

Wolfie refuses to eat seafood for two reasons.1) She doesn't like it and 2) Wolfie always feels so bad...see,when Wolfie was little and her mom took her to the supermarket,she would stand in the deli section and stare at the lobster tank.Wolfie always felt so bad for the lobsters,all crammed together in there,and then when the man would take one out she felt worse knowing he was giving it to someone who would kill it.The image of those poor lobsters stayed with Wolfie all through her life,and makes it impossible for her to eat any form of seafood.

If I end up wanting to prepare an animal for food I research the way that an animal can be killed humanely and quick. Also since I will be living with my partner at this time, I will be thanking it for the meal prior, as even if it can't understand me I want to at least thank it yknow?

Right.Humans should thank the animals for their sacrifice.

And after that she animal should be treated respectfully. I mean, many people boil a crab not knowing they are capable of pain.
They're well known to "scream" in the pot :(

*Shivers* Wolfie hates to think of that.The poor babies! If you're going to kill them,at least do it quickly so they don't suffer!

Actually, the "screaming" is just gas being heated, expanding, and whistling as it makes its way out of the exoskeleton.

Most invertebrates, certainly not all (see: squids and octopi), but most, have a brain structure such that scientists believe any pain they feel is more like a computer error message than actual agony. It's not "OH F$#%# MAKE IT STOP", but more "My sensors indicate that this situation is damaging me. I should remove myself from it." They lack the parts of the brain associated with the emotional aspect of pain.

Even so, I much prefer it if my seafood is killed as quickly as possible. Just because...it seems kinder, even if that could be completely meaningless.

I also cannot eat it if I've seen it live. It just makes me kind of sick.

Either way, to show such lack of respect to something that is giving you sustenance is rather barbaric...

I mean if you think about it, we as a people really do disrespect animals and nature far more than we'd like to admit. We send animals off to extinction, we let our pets breed out of control, and we don't have the respect for the world to not release damaging species into different areas. Like the Green Tree Anole, which eventually will be extinct in Florida because of a Brown species that was brought in.

Really there's only a small percentage of people who genuinely care about how the nature and animals feel. Scientists also told us cats were color blind, gold fish were stupid, and animals aren't any smarter than a child at the best.
Truth is, cats can see color, gold fish can be trained, and I've found animals that exceed the intelligence they're expected to have. Like a cat with a memory exceeding at least 10 years beyond what is "possible" for such a "primitive" animal. Plus on top of that, to be fair, most humans don't end up maturing past being a child anyways... we simply grow up.

A lot of birds keep surprising us with how bright they really are. They call pigeons "flying rats"...which is applicable in a good way; both pigeons and rats are actually pretty brilliant. Pigeons have recently been tested with touchscreen devices and passed the tests far better than anyone would ever have guessed.

And then, there's evidence to suggest that if shellfish feel great amounts of pain...then so do plants. So, whether or not either does becomes kind of a moot point because a person needs to eat. So again...you just kinda want to make it as quick as possible.

...and it really bothers me that we just throw out shells and bones and feathers and skins from the things killed for food. I like to use as much of that as possible. Like I said, if something died to give us a meal, we should have the decency to thank it and get as much use out of it as possible instead of just trying to forget it's a dead thing.

I've been doing a lot of my own studies with cats, as I've grown up around them. I knew cats weren't colorblind before scientists started claiming it. As a kid I took 3 colored balloons and our cat reacted differently to all 3. She had a favorite color (blue) and a least favorite (red), which to a colorblind person wont look that different. I still remember being told I was silly for claiming it.

I think in their own way everything shows pain. Even the earth which isn't even alive, it shows pain from what we do. Our actions change weather patterns and other such important details.

That's true, but with so many thousands of shells being consumed each day what do you do with them?
As for the feathers... well that should be an easy solution. Lots of things use feathers.