EXCERPT: You’d have to wonder what else could be achieved if everyone worked together as tightly. Enforced socialism is what I called it weeks ago; for that to work, people had to work together, which we did – well done again!
I startled two sibling ducklings on my morning walk. They swam across the shallow river as fast as their little legs could paddle, calling for assistance.
On the far bank, a small gathering of mallards and hens paid them scant attention. This stretch of the river was obviously considered safe by the wardens of the duck community.
I waited and watched. Sometimes the ducklings would get caught in a fast-moving flow and end up back where they started, as if they were in a game of snakes and ladders. Still, their elders paid no heed. I wondered if there was anything in the river that could eat them. If there was, would it have made a difference to their parents’ response?
Eventually, the youngsters gave up fighting the current and began to head downstream towards the forest of reeds that had protected them as chicks. The reeds were no longer underwater. No longer safe from foxes or badgers or cats or whatever else it is that eats tasty young duck chicks. A hen split from the raft of gossiping adults and glided effortlessly towards the two hapless siblings who latched onto her wake and followed her back to the group.
I wondered if I’d just witnessed a display of terrible parenting, akin to buying Taytos and Coke and bringing them to the car while a cheeky pint or two was necked at the bar, or was it the mother’s way of teaching them independence from a safe yet appropriate distance? Either way, it struck me, humans aren’t so different.
They say we shouldn’t do that – interpret animal behaviour through human values; maybe, but what about interpreting parental behaviour through parental instincts?
I’ve got used to my daily river walk. I don’t really want to do much else. Luckily for me the firefighters lockdown will stay in place long after the good people of the world return to their traffic jams.
Which shouldn’t be too long now. The Government (is it still interim?) is drawing up plans that will see the economy begin to rouse from sleep, now that the capacity for mass testing is considered adequate. In earlier entries I talked of buying the health care services time. After 40 or 33 days of lockdown, depending on when you start counting, we might have done that. Well done all round!
You’d have to wonder what else could be achieved if everyone worked together as tightly. Enforced socialism is what I called it weeks ago; for that to work, people had to work together, which we did – well done again!
Soon the extraordinary circumstances will be behind us. I wonder will it be as you were. I hope it won’t for me. I learned a bit more about the way my mind works this week. My head’s been a little fried over an issue this week – it’s funny how we can trick ourselves into believing stuff that we know isn’t true without even intending to do it. Self-protection I imagine.
There is a situation in my life that I’m worried about losing. I tried to be sanguine about it. “Maybe it’s for the best?” I told myself. “What’s for you won’t pass you by,” and “One door shuts, another opens.” There’s loads of them to pick from – catchy little sayings that, if you’re not honest with yourself, can be used to rationalise all kinds of nonsense. I wasn’t.
Soon, “maybe it’s for the best” had changed to – “It is for the best.” Before you know it, I had actively started to look for alternatives to the thing I was scared of losing and started acting accordingly. Which would have guaranteed I would have lost the thing. Does that make sense?
If I had not have been writing daily, I might not have copped on to that strange little quirk in my thinking patterns.
Ultimately it boils down to the ego trying to protect itself. It has cost me over the years. If nothing else that would be a nice little lesson from these Covid days.
