The Simple Things
By Leo Mondragon
It’s funny how we go about life without noticing the simple things around us.
For instance, the world.
We humans are decadent. We go about life in our stupid commodity worlds; we drive around in our huge automobiles, always on the move trying to reach the easy life under the cover of big money, consuming enormous amounts of natural resources to fulfill our need of self indulgence and shallow well-being.
And we totally forget that out there, animals are trying to survive amidst the world we have imposed on them. We have taken over their lands and territories and now they have to live among us humans in our concrete civilizations, hiding and avoiding us, trying to take advantage of every green space they can to survive and to feel a little like the home they used to have.
There are currently millions and millions and millions of humans in this world. But in comparison, very few people and organizations really care about animal welfare. I was one of those people, lost in my own world, never stopping to think about animals that lived around me for not even one second. I was just one of those people who did not give a damn.
But that has changed. Recently this little being came into our lives, taking us suddenly by surprise. It is a baby squirrel, just recently born. It is of uncommon nature that life has crossed our path, for he is a helpless little creature who has lost its mother and would not have survived on its own out there.
So we took him in our home and we are doing the best to take care of him. With awe I observe his will to survive. Suddenly I wonder if he knows what kind of world he came into. A world where he has to share life with us, the very ones that are destroying the natural habitat of their kind.
Sometimes I wonder why we humans stopped caring about these simple things that are so important. In what ill-fated moment did we let greed and power take over our yearnings? In what time did humanity start to follow the cruel and ruthless rulers of the world and fight for their causes instead of fighting for the causes of nature and the animals that we share this planet with? The earth is not a human planet. It is the planet we share with others of different species. There is a big difference there.
Life would be much better if we thought this through.
