Day 17 - warfare

Pitched battle...

I've always been fascinated by how opposing viewpoints and visions can offer us a very different perspective on the world and our role in it.

Carretera Tambopata - ground's eye view - Giles Crosse

When we look at things from a viewpoint that's beyond the norm, we can often perceive new ideas, thoughts and concepts. A lot of the best ideas on ways to meaningfully live, think, evolve and contribute can stem from very simple ways of stepping outside our routine normality.

Life and Death - Giles Crosse

There is an equally huge amount to be learned from simple observations of everyday life. While I was checking the email, the ant above wandered into a spiders web. This was not without some sense of irony, as I actually had tried to redirect the ant as he was heading directly towards my bed!

Within moments, two spiders descended from underneath my bed in Fauna Forever HQ. I've always been intrigued and mildly repulsed by how spiders kill their prey. I'm no expert, but I believe they inject a paralysing toxin which then liquifies the unfortunate victim. It seems a pretty gruesome way to go.

You may be able to imagine the vigour with which the ant struggled to set itself free...

Life and Death 2 - Giles Crosse

This struggle continued for a fair few minutes...

Life and Death 3 - Giles Crosse

Eventually, the ant actually managed to extricate itself and stumbled off in the direction of the window. Nothing has been seen of it since so I guess it's fair to assume he's made a getaway.

There's a remarkable similarity between the fate of ant, and how we ourselves can become ensnared in patterns of work and consumption which may actually do us very few favours.

Not many people stop to consider whether they chose to work a 9 to 5 pattern. Yet this pattern makes up the vast percentage of our lives. It seems bizarre that we often spend huge proportions of our lives conforming to rules and regulations we had no hand in making. A lot of people seem unhappy in their daily lives, yet few seem able to step outside the cultural boundaries of work and consumption that are set up for them.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with working 9 - 5, Mon to Fri, and spending all your wages on consumer goods if that is what you want to do. But to accept these patterns are realities without question or reason seems illogical. In some ways the less we use and the less we have the less we would need to work. The more time we would  have to spend with our families, outdoors, relaxing, sleeping or whatever we choose.

It may be the societal net we've developed in Western societies is equally as damaging as any spider's web.