"Proudest Monkey"

Simply the title of this song from Dave Matthews' album 'Crash' expresses so much. To deem oneself a monkey is already to call oneself an animal, to lower oneself beneath the widely believed conception that humans are above animals, and somehow, perhaps because of language, closer to the gods than to animals. Yet we share in an "abysmal bodily kinship" with the animal: we have feet with toes. Looking at and recognizing my feet as feet always brings me down from the clouds to the earth, where I cannot escape having to dwell with my brother goats and sister pigs.

But to be proud is uniquely human. Pride is what raises us up, makes us believe we are close to the gods, a sort of pretention. So to say "proudest monkey" is a contradiction in terms. Yet pride is moreover our respect and appreciation for ourselves and or due to our achievements. So to be the "proudest monkey" would be to have realized one's bodily kinship with the beast but to not let that keep one down; to, as a beast, achieve and accomplish goals that will make you proud. We are monkeys, but don't let that hurt/ruin your pride. Be the best you can be, even if that is only as an animal incapable of becoming our ideal, our god.