The Thinking Sapling

This is going to sound random. Last week, I saw a strange sight on campus. It was a chicken right there in front of the dorm. I still have no clue where it came from. It’s not like we have an agricultural faculty, and I’ve never heard of a chicken sighting before: cats and monkeys yes, but no chickens. A friend of mine walked by and asked what I was looking at. I pointed to the chicken and how it was the first I’d seen in Singapore. He said chickens were signs of prosperity in Chinese culture, so it wasn’t unheard of to see them around. Hearing about a sign of good fortune just before exam week was lovely. However, what was the chicken doing here?

I found it rather amusing to put myself in the chicken’s shoes. Maybe it was scouring for food. Then why here, of all places? Were there critters in the soil that it could eat? Maybe it was just on a stroll. The weather was rather nice, I suppose, but why would it come to such a busy place? Do chickens like busy places? Do they even care? Or maybe it was there as a sign of good fortune for the students. That would imply it was destined to be there. Or maybe it understands its complex significance in human culture and knows how we interpret it.

What did it think of our interpretation of them? It must’ve thought something of me standing there for quite a few minutes looking at it. Did it think I wanted to steal its food? Worse, did it think I wanted to eat it? It didn’t look like I scared it. Maybe it’s used to human gazes, thinking of us as silly creatures who gawk at them from time to time. Or maybe it wasn’t even aware of my presence. I’d have to see through its eyes to know that for sure.

How would I know anything about what it thought? I could draw parallels to my mind and perception of things, but do I know what the chicken is thinking? Not really. All these possibilities are figments of my deduction and imagination. I don’t know anything beyond what I see.

It’s the mysterious nature of everything around us. Just as I can never grasp the chicken’s perspective, we can never grasp the perspective of the universe itself—if it even has one. We also don’t know what the universe thinks of us, for we have no access to its mind. Of course, we can observe and see how the world behaves. We have been doing that since the dawn of our existence. We have improved our perception of reality with the many new tools that technology offers. A farmer with experience could predict how chickens would react to different stimuli. However, we only ever perceive our minds. It’s already hazardous to assume a person thinks similarly to you; surely a non-human is far worse.

We know we exist as thinking entities in some form, but what else? For all we know, there could be an evil demon out there manipulating us, or we could all be mere brains in a vat. We still don’t understand what the chicken wants or what it feels toward us—just as we don’t truly understand the universe or even each other.

We observe, deduce, and relate ideas. But all of it arrives through our limited perception. Just as the chicken’s motives lie out of reach, the nature of reality itself is a far-off dream. The best we can do is recognize our limits, embrace the mystery, and keep asking questions—even if the answers remain forever beyond our reach.