My Father Wanted to be a Crow, I Want to be an Ant

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“In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.” Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

This must have happened when I was hardly twelve years old. It was a usual Sunday late morning. We were sitting on the back porch of our house. Over the course of your life, you end up living in different places, starting from your childhood home to dorm rooms to apartments and then on to your own house when you leave your parents’ home. But the way that the childhood home resides into memory is different. This is the home that often comes in your dreams. Our backyard was beautiful. It was neither too small nor too big. The best part was that in the winters, it got a lot of sunshine and it was the most ideal place to be during the winter mornings and afternoons to soak up the warmth from the rays of the Sun.

My father was sitting at the edge of a bench, feet dangling and his home slippers on the floor right next to him. We were used to seeing him on the move at all times. During weekdays, he would leave home early and come back late at night. Even on weekends, he often had to leave for a few hours to work. Seeing him sitting idly at the back porch was a relatively unusual sight. He must have been in his late forties, the same age as I am now. He was not a man of many words but that afternoon he said something that stuck to my mind. This was not a conversation. I don’t know why he said it. But it is one of those things that imprints on your mind and becomes part of your psyche. Looking into the sky, without any context, he uttered, “I wish I was a crow.”

This is all I remember. There was no incident, no event. No conversation or monologue before or after. Just that one sentence and that’s it. For the rest of my life, from time to time, this phrase comes to my mind and makes me think about it. He lost his cognition multiple years before his death so when I grew up, I never got a chance to ask him why he said that. There is also a pretty good chance that even if he was alive and well and if I had asked him, he might have said that he doesn’t even remember when and why he said that. It may have been a very insignificant utterance for him but for some reason I could not shake it off of my head. 

I now have my own interpretations of why he said it. Maybe he was too overworked and this was his way of saying that if he was a bird, he would have been free from the duties a man has in this world. The duties to get up in the morning, to work, to put food on the table. To follow rules, to make sense of world events, fulfill obligations and maintain relationships. Protect oneself and one’s family from harm and danger. Maybe he just wanted to be a free soul who had no deadlines to meet and no calendar to follow. He had achieved worldly success and had a good job. He was earning well and had a good reputation in his community. He had healthy children and had everything that a human can wish for. But perhaps he was having a moment of questioning the reason for this existence. Maybe he was being lazy and just wanted to be on vacation. Maybe he wanted to win the lottery and retire on an island somewhere not having to work another day in his life. 

That is all very understandable. We all have moments like that every once in a while when we get overwhelmed with our current lives and schedules, worries and obligations and we wish for freedom from worldly entanglements. But it still does not explain why he chose to be a crow. He could have wished to be any other animal or bird. He could have wished to be a butterfly, or a goat or a cat for that matter. What was so special about being a crow? Did he just see a crow fly by? Or hear one caw? A crow cannot be considered one of the most beautiful or valuable birds out of the hundreds of thousands of species that are out there. It’s actually one of the ugliest birds. There is nothing attractive about it. The sound that it makes is so annoying and jarring. It’s a nuisance. 

Fine. There might be some benefit to crows such as eating worms and pests that destroy crops. But still for farmers around the world, the crows remain largely a nuisance. That is why in many fields you have to erect a scarecrow. You don’t have to erect a scare sparrow or a scare parrot or a scare falcon but scarecrows are everywhere. In most places where the department of energy conservation regulates the limits of how many birds one can hunt per day, depending on how much they have to conserve their population, there is no limit on how many crows a hunter can kill. This speaks to the uselessness of this bird. In horror movies, if they have to show an abandoned and spooky place, they usually show it infested with crows and ravens. When they show rotten dead bodies in movie scenes, they are shown being eaten by vultures and crows. They are the ultimate scavengers and will eat from heaps of garbage and filth. 

I know I’m being too harsh on crows. They may not be all that bad and every form of life in this world should be considered beautiful and with a purpose. But how do I reconcile the properties of a crow with what my father uttered that idle morning? He is not there for me to ask him anymore so how do I make sense of this memory that has been ingrained in my mind. Should I just think that he meant nothing by it? Should I think that he wanted to be an insignificant form of existence? Maybe he thought that there is a certain feeling of freedom associated with being a crow. Maybe you do not have to strive to be your best at all times. Maybe he did not want to have the pressure of looking good or sounding good. Maybe he wanted to be a being from whom nobody has any expectations. Maybe he did not care about the ugliness and uselessness of the crow and he still loved crows. Maybe that is the exact reason why he loved crows more than other supposedly more “worthy” birds and animals. 

We live in a vast universe. There are many purported explanations of this existence in the form of philosophies, religions and scientific postulates. Yet there is none. In this world, humans have thought of themselves as the center of the universe. For a long time, it was thought that the Sun and the stars rotate around the Earth. The meaning of existence was thought to revolve around the human being. In the seventeenth century, when originally Copernicus and later Galileo showed with the advent of the telescope that it was actually the Earth that revolved around the Sun and later with advancing technology, we came to find out that the Sun is just one of  billions of stars in this vast universe, the existence of humans seems so insignificant and trivial. The Earth as it was seen for the first time by astronauts from a distance, was called the “Pale Blue Dot,” appearing just as a dust speck that you see in the rays of sunshine after brooming the living room. Such was the opposition to these views that Galileo was persecuted and placed on house arrest. Rene Descartes, who is considered one of the most profound thinkers in western philosophy from the times of the French Enlightenment, withdrew his book from publication, worried about being persecuted for his views after he saw what was done to Galileo. 

Such is the level of self importance in humans’ minds that we consider ourselves a superior species compared to all other forms of existence in the world. We eat other animals, incarcerate them, use their furs and skins to make clothes and furniture. We torture them and breed them, keeping them in horrible conditions for human consumption. We claim that we have a higher intellect than all other animals. How did we reach this conclusion? The obvious answer is that we can do things that other animals cannot. We can speak. We can talk. We study science, arts and history. We wear clothes. We get embarrassed. We tell stories. We cook our meals. We count days and months and years. We make ourselves cozy homes to live in. We travel from one place to another using other animals or machines. We build buildings and we come up with ways to treat others who are ill and we try to live longer. We try to explore space. We make weapons to kill each other in large numbers. We try to dominate the world. 

But who has come up with the definition of intelligence? We ourselves. If we were to conduct a scientific study to test the level of our intelligence as a species, who would our control arm be? A goat? Or fish? Maybe an owl? Yes we do seem to ourselves as more intelligent than these control arm animals but that is not a very high standard to achieve. In the big scheme of things, what purpose have we achieved by doing all these things that other animals cannot do? We are the only species that has to pay for where we live. We have to pay for our food and clothes. We are the only ones who become depressed and cry and be miserable. We are the only ones who kill each other in mass numbers. We are the only ones who seek world domination. We are the only ones who give each other hate in the form of racism. Does that make us more or less intelligent compared to other animals? Maybe if you change the definition of intelligence from measuring the so-called “intelligence quotients” to measuring happiness and freedom from the intricacies of the human mind, we might conclude that we are less intelligent than most other animals on the planet. Maybe the human brain is not a blessing but rather a curse. A curse that has been given in such a form that we value it as the most precious part of human existence but it is actually the same mind that is leading to such misery. 

I once had a question in my mind as to which animals have the highest level of intelligence. I looked it up and ofcourse humans have done studies to see which animals have the highest level of intelligence. Monkeys, chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, pigs, owls. All these animals are considered to have a level of intelligence that is above others. But these studies are done by giving these animals tasks and seeing how intelligently they perform these tasks such as navigation if they are lost or their ability to solve very simple problems. I think that if we look at their behavior in a slightly different way, we might reach a different conclusion as to the level of intelligence of animals.

If we measure their intelligence in regards to how they deal with the most dangerous animal in the world, that is, the human, we may reach different answers. Humans have been a threat to almost every other form of life and existence in this world. To achieve human comfort and longevity, most other forms of life, whether animals or plants, have been annihilated and destroyed and we continue to do so without any remorse. To propagate human existence, we destroy forests and trees, we litter natural bodies of water, we kill animals and insects relentlessly. So, to me, the most intelligent animal would be the one that has learnt how best to tackle the most dangerous animal in the world also known as man. By that standard, it appears that the dog and the cat are perhaps the most intelligent animals in the world. While other animals are out in the wild or being eaten by humans around the world, in a majority of the parts of the world, dogs and cats are living luxurious lives as pets in human households. They are being fed delicious food, taken to the vets, their birthdays are celebrated and their emotions are catered to. They live in warmed up houses and sleep in cozy beds. All this they have achieved by somehow over the centuries, convincing the human that they are great species to be kept at home as pets. How intelligent. 

Applying the same standard to other animals, one can also conclude which animals are the dumbest. I wouldn’t hesitate to put the chicken at the top of the list. Chicken is probably the most eaten animal by humans around the world. Neck to neck with the chicken would be the pig. Not too far distant from these would be the cows and sheep. For some reason, their meat has blended best with human taste buds and unfortunately they are killed and eaten more than any other animals. Such is their misery that humans don’t let them get extinct but we have come up with ways to breed them incessantly, keep them in horrific conditions and rather than allowing them to become extinct, we keep increasing their numbers to satisfy human consumption. 

I would propose that we do not consider animals as less intelligent than humans. In many ways they can be considered more intelligent than us. That will give us an opportunity to think of them as equal living beings on this planet. We can then have more empathy and love for all kinds of animals. That way we can also try to learn from each animal. We may not strive to be like one particular species of animals but we can pick and choose different qualities from different animals and try to be like them in one way or another. 

Cliched thoughts are considered to have a lack of originality. It is considered unattractive to not have genuineness of character and thought. One such cliche is to make new year’s resolutions. Mark Twain wrote, “New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions.” It is commonly thought that people make new year’s resolutions and try to follow them for the first few weeks of January and then forget about them and life moves forward in the unmotivated, unorganized way as usual. It is well known to try to avoid going to the gym in January because of crowds produced by such new year resolution enthusiasts. 

But this is one of those cliche things that I still like to do. I love to make new year’s resolutions. It is a great way to energize your mind and soul and to set up goals and targets. If you end up achieving what you aimed and worked for, it brings a lot of joy and sense of accomplishment. If you don’t achieve, it can serve as a good way to self-reflect on one’s failures and to get oneself motivated to learn from mistakes and try to set up new goals in a more achievable way. 

I was going through my journals and came across my new year’s resolutions from the last several years. Typically I divide them in various categories such as health goals or other goals pertaining to academic activities, relationships or other tasks such as learning to play musical instruments etc. I noticed that although a few years ago, I had been successful in achieving a lot of my self appointed goals, but in the last couple of years, my growth curves began stalling. This gave me enough to think about where I was going wrong and what I could do to improve myself. I looked around to see who I could turn to who had shown levels of achievement that I could get inspiration from and try to be like them. 

This is when, spontaneously the thought came to my mind that I wanted to be like an ant. I looked at the goals that I had ever failed to achieve. Sometimes a goal is too vague and it has to be made into a more tangible or achievable goal but my goals were specific enough. Learn to play six songs on the piano this year. Run twenty miles a week. Read for an hour every morning. So I did not seem to have a problem with the specificity of the goals. Other times the goals could be too overambitious. You may not be exercising at all and then make a new years resolution to participate in an Ironman triathlon. A goal too unrealistic to achieve. I did not have that problem either. All my goals were attainable within a reasonable amount of time. Was I lacking discipline to work on my goals?  I did not think so either because I managed my time quite well. Then where was I going wrong? Why had my growth plateaued? After much thought, I found my answer. I was giving in too much to the negative thoughts inside my own head.

Every man’s capability of success in everything he does is directly proportional to his ability to suppress the negative voice that emanates from his own mind. Every morning when you think about exercising, it is the negative in your own head that tells you that you are too tired. If you are trying to call someone who you have not called in a few years, the only thing that stops you from doing so is your own voice in the head that says it would be awkward to call now, she has not called me so why should I call? What are we going to talk about when I call? Maybe they would not like it that I called. And in the end, you do not make that call but if you suppress the negative thought in your own head and finally make the call, you feel so good about it. You are not only feeling good about rekindling that relationship but also feeling good about your own ability to overcome your negative self. This way, you get rid of stagnation from your life. You move forward in your goals and desires and relationships. You achieve. You defeat negativity and procrastination. That brings happiness and fulfillment. 

What other animal would be better to learn this from more than an ant. Look at the ant. It lives its life like it is on a mission. Always looks so determined and clear in its head. Look at its pace, its harmony and cooperation with other ants in its colony. It works hard. If you put a rock in front of it, it will feel it a number of times, analyze it and then learn to walk around it and not let it come in the way of achieving its task. It will not break the workflow. It will not fight with another ant. It will not appear to be concerned whether it is doing more or less than other ants. Its focus seems to be on itself and its own improvement and achieving its own goals. It will do its part in building an ant-nest. It will carry a speck of earth, as much as it has the capability to do so and bring it to the nest. It will carry a crumble of food half its own size, bring it to others to share and be happy without wanting to consume it all on its own or to hoard it for itself and deny it to other fellow ants. You will never see it go out of line and try to break the discipline of the community. Its comparison is not with the other ants but it is trying to be better than its own past self. It keeps its head down and is concerned only with the fulfillment of its own duties. It does not let its own negative self pull back on its desires and tasks at hand.

In a way, life is all about the pursuit of happiness.  It is a good practice to train your mind to learn how to be happy from other people around us. The person does not necessarily need to be someone more educated than you or learned in some way. What you learn does not necessarily have to be in the form of a piece of knowledge or wisdom. It could just be learning a way to do something or finding a new way to think about something. It could be the office janitor who is starting his night shift while you are finishing your work and heading home from whom you can learn how to always have a smile on your face and make time for small genuine talk in the middle of a busy day. It could be the distant aunt who you meet at the family gathering who takes pride in being on her feet all day and never wants to sit down. It could be the neighbor’s twelve year old daughter who celebrates her cat’s birthday with such vigor and pomp. It could be the friend who you meet after such a long time who speaks only of positivity and makes a conscious effort not to let negative emotions bog him down. 

Many philosophers have tried to come up with ways for humans to be happy. Aristotle, “The Philosopher,” called this Eudemonia. He first defined the property that humans have that other animals don’t, which is the ability to engage in a rational thought process. He said that whatever task that humans are assigned to, if it is done in the best of ways, will bring happiness to us. For example if you are encountered with the task of baking a cake, it is neither too sweet nor too tasteless. It should have a color that is most pleasing to the eye. The size of it should be perfect for the intended number of people that will eat the cake. It should neither be too small so that some people go hungry nor too big so that half of the cake is wasted. This method can be applied to anything that humans do using their rational thought process and intellect. He also called it “practical wisdom” suggesting that just being wise about doing something is not enough to achieve happiness. You have to put practicality to it. Knowledge is known to be power but it is impotent unless if put into action. Thereby, it is actually the execution of knowledge that is power. Knowledge without practicality and being put into action is nothing but stress and failure. Procrastination can lead to discontent and self deprecation. 

I would say that we should take it one step further and not just stop at learning from fellow human beings. We should include animals in this endeavor. We can look around and observe the ways of different animals around us. We should see what they do better than humans. We could learn to be faithful from dogs. We could learn how to be selfish about our own comfort from cats. We could learn to be industrious from ants. We could learn how to sing well from sparrows and nightingales. We could learn how to dance from butterflies. Classic literature has numerous examples of animals as the main characters. Franz Kafka’s protagonist becomes an insect in Metamorphosis. Charlotte is a spider that saves Wilbur the pig from slaughter in E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Considered as probably one of the best novels of the last century is Animal Farm where George Orwell describes the politics of a society through a whole slew of animal characters. 

What did my father want to learn from being a crow, I still don’t know. But I do know that this year I will strive to become more like an ant. Maybe he was one of those people who derive satisfaction from doing nothing, floating through life like a plastic bag in the wind. Maybe I’m one of those people who love their checklists and daily goals which I would like to pursue day in and out with my head down, oblivious of my surroundings. 

What animal would you like to be like?

February 14, 2024