Why Do We Anthropomorphize?

Giving human characteristics to animals, inanimate objects or natural phenomena is a human trait called “to anthropomorphize.”

Anthropomorphism carries many important implications. For example, thinking of a nonhuman entity in human ways renders it worthy of moral care and consideration. In addition, anthropomorphized entities become responsible for their own actions — that is, they become deserving of punishment and reward.

Although we like to anthropomorphize, we do not assign human qualities to each and every single object we encounter. What accounts for this selectivity? One factor is similarity. An entity is more likely to be anthropomorphized if it appears to have many traits similar to those of humans (for example, through human-like movements or physical features such as a face).

-Courtesy of Photojournalist Alice Kay

I don't see any face but it is easy to see that this poor, down on his luck OCHA is "riding the rails" (if the train ever comes!) ...Tossed from the saloon that featured Coors Light on tap because he had no money - he desperately wants to move on.

 Where will he go? What will become of him? Is he destined to be run over and flattened like many of his ilk?

I hate to tell him that his wait for "the train" might be a long one. Those rails, while they connect at a nearby junction to others that head north (to destinations as exotic as Niagara Falls) and south to old mountain towns like Wilkes-Barre and "Jim Thorpe" (founded as Mauch Chunk in 1818), have not been served by a train in some time (sad to say.)

Well I lay my head on the railroad track
Waiting on the Double E
But the train don`t run by here no more
Poor poor pitiful me

Poor poor pitiful me
Poor poor pitiful me
Oh these boys won`t let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe woe is me

Those rails whose very existence were fought for and doggedly repaired after being badly damaged, repeatedly, by flooding caused by bad storms have an uncertain future - a future as uncertain as that poor, down on his luck, Orange Cone Head Alien's.

The late, great Lehigh Valley Rail Road