Maybe I’m not cut out to live off the land. I’m certainly not taking full advantage of the opportunities which are being presented to me. This morning I swerved the truck to avoid a few young grouse, filling their gizzards with pebbles from the road. And a couple of weeks ago I nearly sunk the boat in my effort to avoid a gaggle of darling ducklings that darted in every direction I steered.
Why is it that I am not searching out these circumstances as opportunities, as gifts to me, the purported self-provider? Is it innately instinctual to exhibit this aversion to dietary road-kill? How can it be that we are almost willing to die in avoiding a collision with an animal, only to go home and load the gun for a fruitful hunt? How interestingly peculiar (note that I did not say, “hypocritical”?) that we might spend weeks nursing an injured rabbit back to life, only to spend another portion of our recreational time in the pursuit of snaring rabbits.
As a minimum, we might wave away this peculiarity with the suggestion that it is powerfully compelling, and certainly endearing, to nurture and love; on the other hand, for the omnivores and carnivores amongst us, there is apt justification for the phrase, “food for thought.”