📌Early bird catches the worm...(Original wildlife photos and thoughts)

vm2904 (64)in #photography • 7 years ago

... Early worm gets eaten!!

Albert Einstein once said "Unthinking respect of authority is the greatest enemy of truth"

Today, I am in one of my 'rant and rave about so called customs /traditions' moods. The episode that triggered that mood is that I happened to witness this simple act of a bird catching a worm (a moth actually if you want to get technical but that is besides the point). As I wandered around, hoping to catch site of some awesome migrant bird, early morning last week, this Plain Prinia fluttered around and deftly caught a moth. Wasn't that a lucky bird?? What makes me rant then? Well, let me get into that but before I do, here is the hi-res picture I took this morning with my Nikon P900 near the outskirts of my hometown.

So - what has this bird-worm episode and Einstein's quote about blindly following authority got to do with my rant about customs and traditions. It is not so much about customs/ traditions but about the wisdom that is 'traditionally' ingrained in us. Have we not all been told - "Be the early bird" With this example of an early bird catching the worm, our parents and teachers always hammered the importance of taking action early. I want to turn that on it's head a bit and look at it from other angle as well.

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓵𝔂 𝓫𝓲𝓻𝓭...

Being the early bird means acting early, with all haste and jumping to take advantage of the opportunity. The moral of the bird-worm story, traditionally, is - we should all get up early, struggle industriously like the bird and catch a few worms before other birds get stirring. Right?

Sure - why not. Getting the worm is great, so this philosophy is correct - everyone should follow it. That, friends, exactly is where we all go wrong. The philosophy is not extendable across the entire gamut of human specimens.

Think about it - there is a flip side to every coin! So - the philosophy works for the bird but what about the worm?

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓵𝔂 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓶...

The early worm gets eaten. The thing that works for the bird is extremely dangerous for the worm. The worm would have lived and been happier if it had followed it's usual lazy ass routine.

However, is living a few moments, days or years the only objective in life? Should we all be worms who crawl around in mud, smelling fresh manure and living a life of, well, a worm?

The obvious answer is to always be a bird and never be a worm! Then you would not have to worry about all these problems. Easier said than done though - don't you agree? In life, there are always periods when we can not become birds - however hard we may try. We are destined to be a worm - at least for a while - due to circumstances. What can be done then?

𝓑𝓸𝓸𝓴𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓶 𝓸𝓻 𝓼𝓶𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓶

There is no right answer to this situation. The only thing we can do is to be smart, adaptive and quick on our feet. We can not just abide by traditional wisdom or depend on others to cue us for our actions. We must study our situation, become a book worm and apply what we learn to find a very street-smart way out of our problems. In other words, becoming a bookworm and a smart worm can save us.