Other Life
I was browsing the web in the morning today, when this common sparrow landed on the widow sill behind me. I looked at her, she was too busy to look at me. She was bouncing around and then after a while flew away to her next stop.
In our normal daily life, it isn't uncommon to be occupied thinking about what other fellow humans might be thinking of us, if they approve of the way we do things, the way we are. If our social media posts are getting enough engagement.
Then you have the birds and animals, they do not care about any of those things. They just care if we are a threat, a source of nourishment, or just a presence. They do not care if we smile at them, frown at them, wear the right clothes or speak the right words or have productive days or profound life goals. They are okay with who we are and whatever we do, even if we don't do anything at all.
The bird made me realize about how irregularly I think of life forms other than humans. Because we think in comparative and relational terms, I think being together with all other life forms puts human thought in the broader context of reality. The decreasing populations of birds and other species are talked of as a metric. But it is very directly related with how we perceive our own place in the scheme of the animate. Directly affecting the realm of our psyche.