I just had an epiphany or what some might call an introspective moment. I was in the garage, looking out at the street, thinking what a lovely day it is. Sun shining in the sky, cool breeze, birds chirping above, one of those days you just feel like doing nothing except laze around and enjoy what life has to offer. Moments later, two birds flew into the garage. As they walked around, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice to trap these birds. Maybe I will have something to play with today. See as a kid, I was always fascinated with birds and animals, still am actually. Various scenarios were running through my mind, how was I going to trap these birds without scaring them away? That was when it hit me. What is with human beings that we always want to restrict the natural flow of things? What purpose would trapping those birds do for me besides entertainment? I’d play with them for a few hours at most before getting bored. That might not mean much to anyone reading this, but those hours might be precious to those birds. Their eating and hunting pattern most likely would have been hampered by my selfishness. Then a myriad of thoughts started running through my mind, at the top of that list were scenes from the movie, “The Cove”. All those trapped animals in aquariums, zoos and backyards. Don’t get me wrong I am no animal crusader, but something about taking wild animals from their habitats and putting them in cages and underwater apparatus just doesn’t sound right to me. The excuse being we are only doing what’s best for these creatures. One thing I have come to understand is that even the best of intentions can be quite harmful. There’s something about human nature that makes us want to impose our will on others, not just animals by the way, but our fellow humans too. Call it a sense of dominance, which is why you hear stories of people keeping Tigers, Lions, Monkeys and such in their homes. Knowing quite well, these animals were never meant to be domesticated. It makes me question why we have to encroach on everything we come in contact with. It feels ‘unnatural’ to me. We are inquisitive creatures, yet our curiosity might be borderline destructive.
Just as I was pondering the plight of these animals, something else hit me. It slowly dawned on me that I was also trapped. Trapped by social constructs and norms, forced to dance to the beat everyone else follows. We all take the same paths, its basically sleep, eat, go to school or work and do the same thing all over again the very next day. There are a few exceptions, some of us stray from that, but generally we are all governed by the same factors. I looked at those birds once more and felt jealous. Those birds were free to go anywhere they wanted, do as they please, worry free, bills free, trouble free. They don’t have to deal with the same restrictions we do. I wonder what it would take for me to soar, and where would I go? I wonder what it would be like to stray away from societal norm and just ‘soar’. Its one thing to be alive, its another to truly live. We can learn a lot from nature and things around us, sadly not a lot of us care to open our eyes to see such.
