>“Until then, it was considered eccentric to care so much about an animal that you would bury it,” Koudounaris says.

The thing that I think is evolving rapidly in our era is empathy for other beings, human and also animal. To understand what it would be like to be in their shoes and understand that very little separates us from them. It's not all about selfishness and just looking out for yourself and what happens to you. I know many will disagree, but that's what it looks like from a zoomed out view of our history to me. I think love and empathy is a natural progression that accompanies intelligence. And that comforts me about the universe.