Strangely comforting

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I’ve spent more time in the chicken coop than I ever needed to. Far more than the chores required. When I first started keeping poultry, I never imagined I’d one day describe them as fascinating.

And yet, I have. More than once :)

There’s something unexpectedly captivating about just sitting and watching them. Each bird with its own quirks, its own small routines, its own peculiar way of moving within the narrow world of the coop. Together, in their naivety (which some might ignorantly call stupidity), they form a tiny society, complete with its spectrum of temperaments and behaviours.

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And one day, as I watched, a thought struck me:
Are we really so different?
Or is it all a matter of perspective?

From where I stand, as a human, they look like a small and inferior species. But if I were a snail, I would see hens as fast, furious, and lethal. To me, they are clumsy and harmless. To a snail, they are merciless hunters, terrifying giants.

So I wondered: what if something else is watching us, the way I watch my hens? What if, somewhere out there, a being, a god, an alien, a creature from a higher dimension, looks down and sees us the way I see those tiny chicks running after their mother?

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The other day, while swimming, the thought returned. I found myself observing the regulars at the beach, the people who have been coming here for years, following their routines with almost religious devotion. Locking their bikes to the same pole. Hanging their swimsuits on the same branch. Or even that guy who always unfastens his belt at the very same step on the way down to the beach.

Repetition. Familiarity. Ritual.

And again I asked myself: are we really so different?

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On the surface, perhaps not. We all follow our own patterns: we eat, we sleep, we raise our children, we build small daily rituals that give shape to our lives.

But on a larger scale, humans set themselves apart and not always for the better. We reshape landscapes with cities and roads. We dig metals out of the earth’s heart. We change the very air we breathe. And we are more destructive than any other creature, perhaps more than all others combined.

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We behave as if we have the right to erase whatever stands in our way. A forest, a species, or even entire groups of people who differ in colour or belief. I don’t know of any animal that would try to wipe out another species to the very last one. And yet, our own history is marked by genocides, even today, even in what we call the “civilised” world.

But then, if you pull the gaze back even further, beyond our planet, beyond our solar system, what do you see?

Just a small globe circling in space, with creatures who eat, drink, love, fight, destroy and who, sooner or later, will vanish into the dark, along with the planet itself.

Strangely comforting thought, isn’t it?

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_{I took those pictures on 30/7/2019 and I have shared photographs from that day on two other posts, on August 1st 2019 and on February 5th 2022.}

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_{The camera that I used is a Canon EOS 7D with an EF 80-200mm f2.8/L zoom lens attached. I edited the photographs in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic.}

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All the pictures and the words are mine.

Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.

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