Feel free to go for the kidney shot while I expose my soft underbelly
The other day, as we were walking towards the house, we found an injured little thrush in our front yard that was stuck on its back and couldn't move. It was late in the evening and the animal shelter was closed, so we kept it in a padded box with some grains and water until morning, and tucked it in with a piece of my brother's pair old pair of pyjamas that we found. I kept checking on it every hour or so, just watching the little fellah roll about the place, looking somewhat confused but generally placid. Then, one time when I came to check on him, he wasn't rolling about the place anymore. In fact, he wasn't moving at all. I knelt down and held my breath, hoping and hoping that his little chest would heave - that something, anything would provide some sign of life. But it didn't. The poor little thrush, that couldn't possibly have done anything to deserve it, had died all alone in a box on our doorstep in the middle of the night. And all that he left behind was a real unhappy kid, who was frozen in place as he knelt beside him watching the back of his tiny motionless head peeking out from under a piece of his brother's pyjamas.
When you're a little kid, a little bird dies in a shoebox in your garage and it just doesn't make any sense, why such a thing is allowed to happen. Then when you grow up a bit, you sort of start to learn that it's all part of nature and that these things can't be helped and that it's just the way the world works. But then one day another little bird dies alone in a box on your doorstep and you realize that it makes as little sense now as it did back then. Forget the fact that the bird itself had probably slaughtered all sorts of worms it in its day (that also didn't deserve it), forget what a hypocritical carnivorous scum you're being, and forget food chains and natural processes and the ways of nature. I don't care who you are, or how jaded and cynical you become, there's no way that little thrush could not elicit the exact same feeling in you. It's not something you can overthink. And at that moment, "it's the way nature works" doesn't help it make sense, and "these things happen all the time" most certainly doesn't. The truth is, the only way you can deal with it is to be able to believe that the little thrush has gone to a better place - as cliche as it sounds - and is now having the time of its life flying loop-to-loops like a madman somewhere up in the clouds. It's tantamount to the big hug and "everything will be all right" that your mom gives you after that first bird dies in your shoebox, and is really the only thing that lets you to reconcile the sheer injustice of it all and not dwell on the image of that motionless head peeping out from under a piece of your brother's pyjamas for too long. And then you start to think: is that the precise thought-moment that is at the root of people's need for religion in the first place?
Now, I'm not a religious kind of guy, but I like to think that that crazy little thrush is up in those clouds somewhere, flying loop-to-loops like a real madman. I need to.
When you're a little kid, a little bird dies in a shoebox in your garage and it just doesn't make any sense, why such a thing is allowed to happen. Then when you grow up a bit, you sort of start to learn that it's all part of nature and that these things can't be helped and that it's just the way the world works. But then one day another little bird dies alone in a box on your doorstep and you realize that it makes as little sense now as it did back then. Forget the fact that the bird itself had probably slaughtered all sorts of worms it in its day (that also didn't deserve it), forget what a hypocritical carnivorous scum you're being, and forget food chains and natural processes and the ways of nature. I don't care who you are, or how jaded and cynical you become, there's no way that little thrush could not elicit the exact same feeling in you. It's not something you can overthink. And at that moment, "it's the way nature works" doesn't help it make sense, and "these things happen all the time" most certainly doesn't. The truth is, the only way you can deal with it is to be able to believe that the little thrush has gone to a better place - as cliche as it sounds - and is now having the time of its life flying loop-to-loops like a madman somewhere up in the clouds. It's tantamount to the big hug and "everything will be all right" that your mom gives you after that first bird dies in your shoebox, and is really the only thing that lets you to reconcile the sheer injustice of it all and not dwell on the image of that motionless head peeping out from under a piece of your brother's pyjamas for too long. And then you start to think: is that the precise thought-moment that is at the root of people's need for religion in the first place?
Now, I'm not a religious kind of guy, but I like to think that that crazy little thrush is up in those clouds somewhere, flying loop-to-loops like a real madman. I need to.