Malice in Wonderland

(excerpt from my blog entry dated January 12, 2012, a Thursday)

I was, one time, crouching on the floor while talking to my two-year-old nieces. They’re barely three feet tall. And looking up around me, I could see the world from their vantage point, the same vantage point I had when I was a kid their size. It’s amazing how you, grown up as you are, forget these things, and how your mind filled with wonder and imaginings, and how the smallest playroom could be the widest room in the world.

It is easy to get “lost” in your world when you are that tall (or short). So what do you do? Well, you get lost (assuming, of course, that you have your current sensibilities). Go here and there with wonder and excitement (assuming that you’re not arthritic or rheumatic or what?), exploring the world, can’t wait to be all grown up, wanting to see what’s beyond the walls and fences that surround you.

But with our size and having grown up and known a bit about travel (how much it costs, how far or how long to get there, and what obstacles would be on the way), we sometimes(?) tend to focus on the tediousness of travel, preferring to lie down or sit back in a comfortable bedding or chair. Respectively, of course. Hehe.

But then, there are those who would prefer to be childlike still, and still wonder about what else is there beyond the bigger “fence,” the seemingly insurmountable boundaries surrounding us.

And so, we fly.

I wonder if we’d ever be satisfied, being up there, seeing things from such a high vantage point, where the distance between here and the nearest sea has been reduced to just a few inches of measure between the thumb and forefinger of our right hand (or left, if you prefer).

As I see it, it is a good thing that we cannot fly all the time. We humans, with our general incapacity to be content, would keep on wondering and wandering. For as you grow older, malice fills your heart. Is there anything worse for an explorer than to be filled with both wonder and malice at the same time?

So, yes, it is a good thing that we cannot grow really really tall whenever we want to, or fly up in the sky whenever we fancy it. The birds have the best of both views. And it is only right, I think, that they are given that privilege. Because they have no malice.

Such living permits them no permanency of home and possessions. No real estate to be jealous about. Just the permanency of habits, I guess, flying here when a season comes, and flying there when the season changes. (I wonder if the migrating patterns of birds changed this year).

And yes, of course, the bird songs. At certain times of the day (or night), you can hear them (if yours is a place that welcomes them, that is). Morning vocal exercises, finding the worms and insects that nourish them and their young. I wonder if they ever think of death.

Danger—I think they most probably think that. All the time, I suppose. The prey—predator system applies to them, yes; but death—would that be something they’d ponder on? I mean, it’s tragic, yes. But it’s not totally “not dismissible,” right?

But if there be no thought of death for them, and no thought of achievement either (other than being able to successfully go through life’s cycle of growth and reproduction), does that account for the absence of malice in them?

But then again, if they were crocodiles (or at least as big as crocodiles), I’d probably think differently. Surely, there MUST BE such a thing as malice in the animal kingdom. It just so happens that human malice is what we understand more, despite being vastly more complicated. I guess I have just been romanticizing the birds too much. Chapter!