a tale of two squirrels
Standing on the balcony of my Toronto apartment a few years ago, I saw a squirrel take a leap of faith from a tree to a power line. The poor little thing couldn’t stick the landing. Only its forepaws made contact with the taut cable. Its legs swung out from underneath it, and the momentum of the jump overwhelmed the squirrel’s grip.
My heart skipped a beat as it fell three stories. I watched it smack the sidewalk, then quickly limp into the bushes. I felt sad and powerless. I wanted to help, but I knew there was probably nothing I could do. Just in case, I ran down the stairs to check if it was okay. I never found the squirrel but I did find a little wet spot where it landed. I hope it got away and recovered, but I’ll never know.
I remember staring at that wet spot, thinking about the cruelty of nature. We’re all these little imperfect beings, and sometimes, we just don’t stick the landing. At the time, I saw the accident as an example of the inevitability of pain. I had some spiritual rhetoric about how we all suffer. I now realize this view is limited and dismissive. It’s tempting to see someone else’s pain as a mere fact of life, but I forgot to consider the cruelty of human negligence at play in that squirrel’s fall. I forgot to consider the consistent failure of human designers to consider how our creations disrupt natural systems.
I see this now because last week, I saw another squirrel fall and make the exact same error. Except this time, it was in the woods jumping from one tree to another. The branch was flexible, so as the squirrel scrambled, the tree absorbed its weight and gently lowered it to a second branch. Even still, the squirrel lost grip and fell. Thankfully, there were two more branches below. Our little friend grabbed one of them with its dextrous little paws, pulled itself back up, and was off on its merry way to the next tree.
It immediately dawned on me: Squirrels’ animal instincts and climbing skills evolved for lush trees, not power lines. We so often fail to think of the unintended consequences of the world we design. Squirrels are the last thing on our minds when we put up power lines near trees. But the reality is that a single hoisted cable is a very unforgiving perch for an unsuspecting squirrel. Its instincts have evolved for flexible, layered branches. We have inadvertently designed the perfect squirrel trap and placed it on every corner.
Spiritual teachings about suffering are not an excuse to shrug and ignore other people’s pain. The fact that we all face hardship shouldn’t give us license us to shrug and ignore the plight of others. Quite the opposite. Whether following noble truths, the word of god, or stoic philosophy, acknowledging the inevitability of pain and death can inspire us to care about each other.
In this tale of two squirrels, we see the same force at play that has become the hallmark of our civilization. It’s becoming increasingly clear that our species’ work terraforming the earth and extracting unthinkable potential from its elements has completely disrupted nature. We cause a lot of suffering. Our over-designed society is just now starting to acknowledge this fact. As we recognize that we too are a part of nature, we start to see our own design errors circling back to bite us in the ass.
We cannot over-harvest our planet without affecting our own keep on its surface. Planet earth is not structured to support mass carbon dioxide emissions at scale. Similarly, we cannot over-harvest our minds without affecting the delicate balance required for mental health, nor for democracy. Our attentional capacity is limited, yet vulnerable to exploitation through our biological nature. Squirrels did not evolve to jump on power lines, and our minds did not evolve to be constantly triggered.
We can shrug it all off, or we can acknowledge the cruelty of human negligence and become better designers.
Jay Vidyarthi