it’s never a good time

today, when i filled the bird feeders
i sat down right beside them, just to see
what the birds and squirrels would do,

and to write this.

for a few moments, the trees were full of life and chatter:
“food’s here, but the human’s still there with it —
now what?”
but soon the collective decision was made: too risky,
and they’d called each other away to other sources;
it was quiet, and i was left alone.

no fools, these creatures:
life always has options, and their’s were obvious.

not so humans:
“if you place the same roadblock in front of 50 people”
(justin asks),
“is it safe to say that 25 of them will find a way around it,
and another 25 will use it as an excuse to not moveforward?”

my answer: it all depends on the size of the roadblock to you.
those that must will find a way around it, or surmount it:
it is not courage when you have no choice.

those that find it easy will find a way around it, or surmount it.
those that don’t will use it as an excuse, and wait:
we do what we must, then we do what’s easy, then we do what’s fun.
that is how we make our choices.
the needs of the moment.
nature’s way.

the birds abandoned me today because they had the choice
(i would not have tried this experiment in midwinter —
that would be cruel)
and because it was easy to find other sources of food.

but for humans, in our artificial world of scarcity and limitation,
we are so exhausted from doing what we must,
that when we do have choices, nothing seems easy,
so nothing is what we do.

we persuade ourselves that what is easy is also fun,
so we have no real fun, in the malls, in front of TVs,
making choices that don’t matter,
making pretend that they do.
while what really matters, what could really be fun,
making the world a better place,
relearning to be open, to live here, now, in the moment,
to take a chance, to run, to fly, to soar,
to be everything we could be
and do everything we can do, want to do, ache to do,
is just too hard,
too complicated.

when all the roadblocks look huge,
it’s never a good time.