Blog #237--Survival is a Game No One Wins
We put out plenty of food for birds and animals that pass through our property. We are consistent and generous, so there is no logical reason for any life forms to fight over the scraps. But it happens anyway because it is their biological imperative.
Squirrels aren’t highly predatory, but like all species some are bullies and some are more fearful than others. There are times when one squirrel will devote his attention to running off a single competitor instead of sharing a repast that far exceeds his ability to hoard. But there’s no logic to his efforts; he merely wants to prove himself superior. That gives him survival confidence, even if it keeps him away from the food while others come in to enjoy the banquet. Again, he is using instincts to fight for survival, and the object of his attention runs away for the same purpose.
Even the smallest, most delicate birds show a range of behaviors designed to enhance survival. While nearly all sparrows will fly off with every unexpected noise, invariably there are a couple that are either wise enough or hungry enough to ignore the flight instinct in favor of more eating. And there is competition between birds when one gets too close to the other’s territory. It doesn’t become a death struggle like a lion and leopard might experience in Africa, but it is the same instinct.
Humans seem to love watching television shows about predators. There are whole weeks devoted to sharks, and also multiple episodes of iconic land predators like lions, tigers, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, cougars, pumas, wild dogs, wolves and others. If we watch just one show that covers only a few months, we can imagine there are winners and losers, with the predators being the big winners.
But that’s not always how it works out. Some dedicated photographers are now spending extended time in specific areas of the world, keeping track of animal families and their survival successes and failures. Their efforts allow us to see the reality of the situation: even the strongest lose some of their battles. And all of them die.
For instance, a cheetah has a much rougher life than assumed given its ability to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds. While it is fast, it tires easily and can’t sustain top speed for more than a few seconds. Even if it reaches its prey and kills it, much recuperative time is needed before eating. Cheetahs aren’t highly dominant and are usually loners, so groups of lions, hyenas, and wild dogs have no problem stealing the kill.
And sometimes cheetahs make fatal mistakes. In one instance, a cheetah was chasing a small antelope and was near the end of its breathing capacity when a larger Thompson’s gazelle crossed its path. Changing prey ended badly for the cheetah. It caught the gazelle, but it was too tired to suffocate it. Instead, the gazelle gored the cheetah to death. This left her two young offspring defenseless, guaranteeing their demise.
If we look at the bigger picture, we realize that families of these predators, as well as herds of their prey, have battled one another for survival on the same land over literally thousands of years. Their ancestors have survived numerous droughts and other natural disasters. Their numbers have dwindled as humans have stolen their territory and profited from killing them. Some have died from fires and some from human wars fought in their areas. All have died.
It is bad enough that known dangers exist for them. It’s even worse when the unexpected occurs. For instance, recently a large group of snow geese started their migration South from Canada later than usual due to warmer-than-normal fall temperatures. They were caught in a blizzard in Montana, so they sought refuge in a lake created by the flooding of Berkeley Pit, an abandoned copper mine near Butte.
The geese never expected what happened next. The water in that pit happens to be one of the most toxic in the world. Among the poisons in the water are arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron and zinc. The heavy metals have turned the water extremely acidic. Perhaps as many as 10,000 geese lost their lives to human contamination.
We call this the “circle of life,” but we somehow fail to recognize how our own lives can be described the same way. Humans have the exact same survival instincts as all other life forms. We have a wider variety of subtle survival techniques that help us survive and reproduce, all of which help part of the time. But in the long run they all fail.
Thousands of generations of humans have fought for the same parcels of land, and all have died, even those who were mostly successful in their survival efforts. It is easy to see why poor people perish...difficult lives face many survival threats. But rich people eventually lose as well. They talk a good line, and they certainly have all the amenities this world has to offer. But even if they someday run off to some other planet to avoid the catastrophe they helped create on Earth, their lives have limits. Like the rest of us, they are programmed from conception with death guaranteed.
We are in the midst of a mass extinction right now. There have been at least 4-5 previous periods in Earth’s history where large numbers of species became extinct, and many are doing so again. Man has a lot to do with it this time. As the human population grows, there is less room for wild animals. And more fish, fowl, reptiles and animals are killed for food each passing day.
Eventually all will be gone except humans. Then we will fight even harder to wipe out other humans who are encroaching on our territory. Someday perhaps the oligarchs who control the money and resource supply of Earth will be the only ones left, but they will then start in on each other. Even if someone becomes king of the hill, success is short-lived because he or she will eventually die as well.
If one were to observe survival of Earth’s various species from a satellite orbiting the planet, one would realize the futility of trying to survive when the odds are entirely against it. But we are not here only to observe...we must also interact with the environment. We might desire to escape the Karmic Wheel that perpetuates this pattern of living and dying, but our survival instincts prevent it. As long as we think we must compete with others for our daily bread, we must continue to repeat this endless cycle.
If we can eventually recognize how our behaviors are self-defeating, perhaps we can precipitate out of the Karmic Wheel. But we won’t know that unless we truly see the futility of our present circumstance and stop judging those that are just like us. If we get caught up in the emotions of competition, we are doomed to lose. Since that is what our instincts require of us, maybe accepting our plight without complaint is our only alternative.
Our ego-driven instincts eventually fail us. Only our spirits live forever.
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