For once in this sorry excuse of a blog, I titled something on my own accord with only my creativity, ennui, and catharsis to help me, and without drawing on inspiration from music, obscure quotes, movie titles, or whatnot.
I suppose that makes this a momentous day.
In any event, any step outdoors on a clear spring or summer day will result, quite often, of a few of one of nature’s most notable avions, the cardinal. Outside where I work, this song is the same, as there a couple of couples of cardinals.
Of course, you’ll also see a rather eclectic assortment of pointedly brainless Mourning Doves, the rather frequent non-chalantly unperturbed and slightly schizophrenic squirrel, all interspresed with more than our fair share of wasps, hornets, bees and other stinging, flying members of the class Insecta to which I believe I am allergic.
If you clicked the above link you’ll find that cardinals mate for life, and are, for the most part, non-migratory. If you see a carindal, you most likely will see two, or the other is not far off.
Which, in my recent attempt to clear my work-addled skull during a break, I silently observed with child-like wonderment. It would seem, again according to the practically omniscient Wikipedia, that cardinals will only migrate during serious climactic changes, when they’re forced out of their area by a suddenly less-than-suitable environment.
What then suddenly crosses the line between suitable and intolerable according to an instinct-driven creature and necessitates such a rare change? What then is a cardinal’s breaking point?
How far does an environment have to change before it is no longer that naive vision of home we all still carry with us?
And what if the tables were turned and I was the one being scrutinized by such a creature? Would I be considered foolish for ignoring that everpresent instinctual drive to fly from an environment that’s slowly killing me?
So many questions, but being as I am only a being of higher-mind, I have a very limited perspective on the matter. I am reminded of Douglas Adams’ description of dolphins as smarter than us:
“It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons. ””
Who says that cardinals don’t have it right by following their instincts, enjoying themselves by flitting about and singing their fast-beating little hearts out? Who says we have it right with our logic and reasoning and well… we’ll call them what they are: excuses?
Am I foolish for subscribing to my so called higher-analytical mind that has logically prescribed remnance as the proper path, and to give-in to my instincts to fly these forbidden skies?
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