When I was a little girl I was hooked on shows like Untamed World and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
The epic ’struggle’ for survival held a bizarre fascination and romance for me.
Yes, I was one strange child…but although I could easily be led to ’feel’ for these animals, I was always a bit mystified by our human choices when it came to investing these creatures and their day-to-day realities with human emotion.
Why did we always opt for a negative viewpoint?
Was this really going to expand my understanding of the human condition or simply place human values on a world that doesn’t work in the same way?
It seemed, and still seems, far too easy for us to disallow an animal a ’soul’ and yet invest it’s everyday actions with attitudes designed to suit our own version of The Epic Struggle without really addressing the contradictions.
For instance:
Lion alone on Rock = Majestic, Kingly
Lion chasing Gazelle = dominance, oppression; ‘poor gazelle/victim’; ’bad hunter lion/bully’
…followed by the inevitable implication: ‘well, kids, that is how life works’
Of course, I could go on and on about how this early introduction to the human ideals of Good vs Evil played out on an animal stage has warped the hearts of many human adults, but I prefer to ask another question for now:
Couldn’t we look at the animal realities of existence as being more of a dance, or a completion…when two apparently different beings come together to make a whole?
Maybe, more than a symbolic struggle for survival – it is the struggle for love and a sense of purpose that continues to elude us?
Anyhow, meet my version of a brief time on the Nile: A Lovers Tale
You will find this story under “Read/Fiction” in the top navigation bar – hopefully…unless the whole darned thing simply scrolls here above or below.
(ah the Joys of Technology – bleh)
The Group has produced over 15 stories towards the Mayhew project and we’ll have the final ‘headcount’ by mid-January
I’ll be posting synopses here in the coming days