Everything has begun because I read on Facebook this question "Do animal waste their time?".
I immediately thought that the first thing which had to be cleared was the meaning of "wasting time". Even if we can easily understand what it means, I think we can't just limit to use the human scale and proportion to Animal World.
I searched through the web for the word's etymology and it seems that the word "waste" comes from the latin's word "vastum", which primarily means "vast, extended, wide, desert" and so on.
And so, from this word naturally comes "devastate" , "to make a place empty/void/desert" because, de + verb" in latin was a prefix normally used to strengten the sense of another certain word.
But the root, "vast" it remained the same as a name in french and italian, in english on the contrary it slowly changed into a verb, which, saw from the literally mean, it perfectly gives the picture of the meaning.
So, "wasting time" is to make the own time "void/empty/deserted". We, as human beings, feel this unpleasant sensation when we're caught in apathy, which, if prolonged for a quite long amount of time, may flows into depression. To avoid this, we work, we do art, we search through the world what amuse us, we set goals to achieve, we explore, we try, we experience. Animals don't. Apparently they don't have any "missing part" in their spirits, they don't feel any lackness about anything.
That's why I don't think animals waste their time, just because we're talking about two different natures, two different ways about how to live.
