I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. I love those animals. Pretty much, all of them. Of course, our dogs, our Ollie and Louis are my favorites. They bring a constant flutter of joy in to my life. I cannot thank them enough for this. All of our dogs, of days gone by, did the same. Oh, I still miss my Frances.
But the animal kingdom is freaking lit. Masterful. Amazing. And as I mentioned, I have a deep appreciation for every creature. Great and small. Albeit, I have never met a Tasmanian Devil. But from afar, they seem nice enough to me. They store fat in their tails and keep their babies in a fluffy pouch. What is not to love?
Yes. The animal world offers all shapes and sizes.
We are fortunate to have a Koi pond at our home. We can look down and see it directly below our living room windows. This Spring, we had an unfortunate incident, and we lost all of our fish. We had nine. They all died. Some of them had been with us more than a decade. All of them had names. We had much sadness around this.
But good news happened this week. We have a Fish Guy named Van. He is a Koi Farmer. And a few days ago, he brought us new fish. They are like magic. They seem very happy to be here, although many are in hiding. I think they are trying to see if their new humans are fish-worthy.
Yesterday, two of them started picking on a third. They were relentless. The naughty two chased the other fish around and around. I was getting very upset for the victim of the pursuit. In fact, I went down, reached my arm down in the water, and splashed around. I tried feeding them. Nothing worked.
Eventually, I imagine, they tired. By last night, all the fish were simply meandering.
This is a theme with me and nature. Whenever I see an animal getting picked on, or two animals quarreling, I somehow feel the need to fix it. To intervene.
Well, Polly old pal, they don’t call it nature for nothing. It is natural. The circle of life and all that. Yet, there is something in me that wants to protect the underdog. To keep them safe. I just want everybody to get along, by golly.
But the world doesn’t work that way. We humans find this challenge in our every day world. There are more than the fair share of underdogs in this world. The low man on the totem pole. The bottom of the barrel. The last of the least.
Injustice. Inequality. Incapability to fathom what is right and good. These are the challenges our good hearts face.
I don’t know what the answer is. But something in me says we should always try to help those who are being treated unfairly. In whatever manner we can. We should never stop caring, or trying, even on our slimmest days.
It is always important for me to remember: There will always be good people in this world, just so long as we keep being good people.
Right along with all those good animals.
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“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
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“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
― Albert Einstein
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“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
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