I am busy writing three key chapters of my Ph.D. dissertation that needs to be in at the end of the year. Time just keeps on ticking by and I do not know where it goes. This necessitates that I sit down for long hours and prohibits me from exploring nature as much as I used to. However, the window where I work allows me to spy on many feathered friends!
Early in the mornings, I think at 5 am, the birds are already up and chirping. At around 7 or 8 am I am up and busy working. I look through the window and see so many bird friends digging for worms and playing in the rain. But this leads me to think:
they are free and I am locked up.
I am locked up in my room writing my dissertation chapters whilst the birds outside fly where they want, eat what they can get, and they do what they want (or need).
I cannot get up and do what I want. I cannot go out and walk in nature or go get a drink with friends. I am stuck and locked up behind my computer reading so many words, typing so many words, that it is bleeding from my eyes.
But at least I have these wonderful friends sitting just outside my window. This small bird friend, the Karoo Thrush, chirps and runs around on the lawn in search of a bug or two. It is scared of the dog, so it runs quickly over the grass and patio and back underneath the thicket.
Then the loud chatter and the loud wings flattering. The big Hadada flies over the house and lands in the middle of the lawn and picks out bugs from deep in the ground.
The loud noise of their call wakes up the whole neighborhood. It sure wakes me from my dogmatic slumber (philosophy pun intended).
But it is amazing to see these large birds fly freely in our neighborhoods. It is amazing to know that there is enough food around for them to grow this big and fly in such big groups. I am sure in years previous there were much bigger groups, but it is what it is.
The sun is out now, and the Karoo thrush is back. When the rains come, the bugs from the ground creep up to the surface. The birds obviously know this. And the thrush takes advantage of this!
And then I am again struck by my own radical unfreedom. From a philosophical perspective, I am living inauthentically. I am not grasping at my own radical freedom, I am choosing to live this life, but this life that I choose does not allow for my radical freedom to bloom.
How awesome is the radical freedom the feathered friends not? How awesome is it that they can do what they do and I cannot?
Alas, at the end of the year I will be a bit freer. All of the photographs are my own taken with my Nikon D300 and zoom lens. All of the musings are my own. Happy birding and stay safe!