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Day 1
Good Morning.
This week’s daily thoughts are based upon the book “life of Pi”. I won’t spoil the story because I don’t think I can - I couldn’t possibly give an adequate description of this bizarre but brilliant recipient of the 2002 Man Booker prize. However, something that I can relate are some of the fascinating side-tracks that spur the reader to stop and think more carefully about themselves and how they see life.
Towards the beginning of the book the central character, “Pi”, describes the fictional zoo that he was brought up in. Although not defending zoo’s per se, he does point out that it is a mistake to equate animals freedom in the wild with happiness, and think that zoos make animals unhappy. In actual fact animals in the wild have a tough time - living lives of compulsion and necessity in an environment low on food but high in fear, disease and sudden death. They often have to be quite reactionary because the smallest changes in their environment could signify the approach of a predator or the onset of a debilitating disease. Animals are therefore happiest in a predictable environment where their needs can be met relatively easily - a situation that can often be achieved quite successfully in a zoo.
However, if zoo animals are unhappy, or try to escape from their enclosure, they are seldom trying to escape to somewhere, but more likely running from something. A good zoo-keeper knows that the solution to an unhappy animal is not to move it somewhere else, but rather look for what is specifically upsetting it, and see if this can be changed. Escape is often a quick reaction, not a long-term solution.
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