I guess the little guy had stored enough chow for a few days and didn't need my offerings. Mice sometimes get into stuff they shouldn't -- that's why they're so easy to poison, on purpose or by accident. I left a bag of bacterial digestive drain stuff on the counter next to the sink some weeks ago. The next morning, microorganism-laden bits were scattered across the counter, a large hole gnawed into the thick plastic container. The label reads, "Harmful if taken internally. Keep out of reach of children."
Maynard was fine after that incident, and I've seen no evidence of similar mischief since. He's a survivor, like his ancestors, resourceful adaptors like mine. Living softly as we do today, however, no predators to evade, as much food wasted as consumed, all things sanitized and pasteurized for our protection, minds unchallenged, numbed by technology and trivia, I wonder if we aren't sliding backward along a muddied, evolutionary trail.
We've set ourselves up for the greatest challenge yet, an epic episode of Survivor with all humanity, all life as we know it on planet earth at stake. The predators have morphed. The tracking of sustenance has changed. Our best hope is to avoid our own progress. We're back to discovering food that won't kill us, ways of life that won't poison our environment, stunt our psyches or compromise our ethics. We evade predators daily, the sharks of our time. Maynard has avoided the hawks and foxes that prowl the adjacent pasture by ducking into this cabin. Whether it's by luck or intuition, he's chosen this particular land-ship to stow away. He's safe, for now, lives day to day as best he can, but without assumptions. Maynard is opportunistic, but not exploitative. He's broken away from his pack, or herd, or however mice roll. He's like the risk-takers, rebels and weirdos of our species, the entrepreneurs and self-mades, the mad, reclusive scientists, the nerds who read, write and ponder rather than watch TV, outcasts who eschew what's mass produced, plasticized, homogenized, and pest-resistant, those who pedal or walk rather than drive, create rather than destroy, value life and beauty and nature over things. My bet's on them to save the world. Artists and free-thinkers are not trickling brooks divergent from the main stream, but rather the flourishing, nourishing tributaries that feed it. Concrete or abstract, it is their crazy revelations, their witness to and conveyance of truth that keeps humanity a hair's width ahead of its sprint toward self-destruction.
Hyperbolic you say? A little mouse's escapades analogous to all that? Maybe....
Maynard was fine after that incident, and I've seen no evidence of similar mischief since. He's a survivor, like his ancestors, resourceful adaptors like mine. Living softly as we do today, however, no predators to evade, as much food wasted as consumed, all things sanitized and pasteurized for our protection, minds unchallenged, numbed by technology and trivia, I wonder if we aren't sliding backward along a muddied, evolutionary trail.
We've set ourselves up for the greatest challenge yet, an epic episode of Survivor with all humanity, all life as we know it on planet earth at stake. The predators have morphed. The tracking of sustenance has changed. Our best hope is to avoid our own progress. We're back to discovering food that won't kill us, ways of life that won't poison our environment, stunt our psyches or compromise our ethics. We evade predators daily, the sharks of our time. Maynard has avoided the hawks and foxes that prowl the adjacent pasture by ducking into this cabin. Whether it's by luck or intuition, he's chosen this particular land-ship to stow away. He's safe, for now, lives day to day as best he can, but without assumptions. Maynard is opportunistic, but not exploitative. He's broken away from his pack, or herd, or however mice roll. He's like the risk-takers, rebels and weirdos of our species, the entrepreneurs and self-mades, the mad, reclusive scientists, the nerds who read, write and ponder rather than watch TV, outcasts who eschew what's mass produced, plasticized, homogenized, and pest-resistant, those who pedal or walk rather than drive, create rather than destroy, value life and beauty and nature over things. My bet's on them to save the world. Artists and free-thinkers are not trickling brooks divergent from the main stream, but rather the flourishing, nourishing tributaries that feed it. Concrete or abstract, it is their crazy revelations, their witness to and conveyance of truth that keeps humanity a hair's width ahead of its sprint toward self-destruction.
Hyperbolic you say? A little mouse's escapades analogous to all that? Maybe....
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