Smallsteps is pretty excited.
There is a mouse family living under a rock beneath our birch tree.
She saw the footprints first in the morning, and then in the afternoon, saw a tiny fellow crossing in from the neighbours garden and scurrying under the rock. They must be waiting out the winter there, although I know one of them didn't make it, as Puusti found one of them. I would like to say that he did a good job hunting it down, but it was frozen solid - more like a mouse popsicle.
My wife was still horrified.
Every living thing needs to eat something.
We have been watching a few "child-friendly" animal documentaries where there is nothing to gruesome going on, because Smallsteps is unusually sensitive. I think we have protected her too much, but it is also because she doesn't have older siblings that she doesn't get exposed to things outside of her age range. However, at the same age, I was pretty well already desensitized to the horrors of the world, as I had pretty much free-reign over what I consumed. I am not a fan of gore, but I saw my fair share of it.
What I would like to introduce Smallsteps to though, is how people around the world live, as she has a very narrow view of the variation. She is pretty good with eating healthy food, but she is still picky at times and the "starving in Africa" kind of statements don't make an impact, because she has never seen a person starving. Even when she comes home from school she is hungry and has little patience, even though it is literally only three hours since she last ate a full meal.
Privilege.
I can't say that I have ever been starving in my life, but again by her age, I was acutely aware of the lack of money in our family in visual comparison to those of other children I knew. I clearly remember situations where I didn't speak for something I needed, because I knew we couldn't afford it. Instead, I would just make do with whatever I had around me. While this teaches some good lessons, it also creates a burden that a child might be better off not dealing with, especially in silence. As a result, scarcity is always on my mind.
Comparatively to many in the world, I too was privileged though, as many were starving, many living in extreme poverty, many dying from disease and hunger that was completely preventable. The charity adverts for a "a dollar a day" with starving children covered in flies were regularly looped and there were often stories in the news about these things. However, perhaps because so much of what we view is streaming now without adverts or with very selective adverts, the view of severely malnourished children is rare - yet there are over 12 million children under five experiencing that right now.
Scarcity is still a daily experience for all of us.
Yes, most of us are not in extreme need of food, with many having the challenges caused by an abundance of calories instead. However, we are likely all experiencing some lack of what we need in life, whether it be nutritional, or something that affects our health in other ways, like a lack of intimacy, friendship, or relevance. And I think that while it is clear to see the dangers of malnutrition, the affects of not having our human needs met is probably more profound, where it not only impacts on us as individuals, but as individuals we shift the entire group.
The human meta has shifted.
It bis always changing, but over the last decade and a half with the introduction of social media and smartphones, the human meta has changed significantly toward conditions of isolation. We are disconnecting from each other physically and emotionally, slicing ourselves of into ever smaller niche identities, and losing our ability to cooperate even when we disagree. We have quickly moved from a growth of experience system to one where we are choosing to limit our experience to keep ourselves feeling safe.
We are starving ourselves.
Unlike the mice who will come out to enjoy the sun when the spring arrives, we seem to be living under a rock that we cannot escape from. We keep making the choice to stay protected, even though it means that we are not living fully. Yearning for something, but too scared of getting disappointed or hurt to move toward it. So many of us keep choosing to starve under the rock, rather than taking the risk of living outside, where the food is.
So many fearful, anxious people, living in scarcity. Scarcity of food, money, companionship and ultimately, love. What is the point of living a life if it is devoid of even the possibility of love? If people expect to receive love without risking their own comfort, that is a level of entitlement too, isn't it? And maybe it is because these days, most of us live with the "privilege" of being able to pick and choose what we see, and be able to filter out anything we don't want. We have the "privilege" to choose convenience, rather than the discomfort of reality, of having to help others, to having to experience pain. We can avoid danger and keep ourselves emotionally safe, but starve due to the lack of connection and intimacy with others.
We are missing something.
We are missing a lot.
Life is scarce by design, and security is a myth.
Human, or mouse?
Taraz
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