"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." — M. Scott Peck
I live in a rural community so was quite surprised when a villager (who has lived in the countryside all of her life) asked “what are foxes for?” in a way that meant foxes have no actual purpose. I had assumed that country people would have given some thought to the life cycle, and to what foxes contribute to it, even if that didn’t thrill them.
For the record, ecologically speaking, foxes do provide ‘pest’ control by killing small creatures who would otherwise have the potential to overwhelm. They also distribute seeds through scoffing certain plants and excreting them around and about. Take blackberries as an example. In the city, foxes have evolved and now contribute to keeping on top of people’s rubbish. And beside that, there’s something beautiful about them.
Afterwards, when I thought further about it, I realised there was something else going on that I’ve sometimes noticed. It’s a kind of throw-away shrug of the shoulder, a kind of verbal so what, or does it really matter? Well, yes. It does.
It occurred to me that not bothering to try to understand something (either wilfully or otherwise) and subsequently dismissing it out of hand, can lead to a sort of insecurity or ignorance, a shallowness. And it acts as a sort of stopper to finding out more and building on that knowledge.
This can lead to a perilous place, where we’re not curious or open to understanding the world outside of our direct experience. And that atrophying of curiosity blunts what’s possible. For all of us.
There’s a war going on in our local farm shop. It’s serving staff against wasps. The serving staff swoop in and kill each wasp interloper with a relish that makes me wonder if there’s a kill chart somewhere round the back. And since I know you’re asking, wasps play an actual role ecologically too, as predators controlling potential pests like greenfly which in turn protects crops and gardens. As Mr Google would tell anyone who cared to look.
And that’s also the point. It’s possible to find out almost anything if you’re interested enough and if you’ve a mind to. And, for the record, the right answer is not always the first thing that pops up in the search engine! (Although I did just do a quick sweep of Mr G in relation to the wasps!).
Akin to this but different, is another phenomenon I’ve encountered over the years. I even wrote a play about it. I call it ‘half-a-chicken’ thinking. Half-a-chicken thinking is when things happen in a particular way for some reason that has been forgotten in the mists of time. It often manifests itself in a kind of “we always do it this way!” which is a kind of perpetual excuse to not make change.
Often change is a very uncomfortable business because at its very heart is the need to do things differently. And this can feel like a challenge that is very difficult to overcome. But change is critical to progress as a human and a population. Is it easy to adapt? Make incremental changes? No, not always. And nor is it always easy to recognise that change is needed. At the heart of all change is also an opportunity even if we’re hardwired to resist it.
Given the fact that change is an inherent part of being human, you’d think we would be better at it: births, deaths, new jobs, changes in current jobs, new bosses, new neighbours, new staff, marriage, break-ups, fall outs, arguments, redundancy, accidents and so on, and yet we do often ride all human stuff like reluctant surfers without ever digging into the heart of the matter.
Half-a-chicken thinking is a step behind this. It relates to our not unreasonable reluctance to peeling back the layers of why we’re doing things and speaks to why the changes we all know are needed don’t always manifest. Or are so painfully slow. Look at the climate emergency. Look at structural inequalities. Look at people staying in jobs when they’re not happy (like I did.)
Half a chicken was a play about a middle-aged woman who always cut her chicken in half to cook it. And why did she do this, age 60, week after week after week? Because that’s how her mother had done it. And that’s how her mother’s mother had done it. And why did her grandmother cook a chicken in this way? Simple: she only had a little roasting dish.
So, I suppose when you start challenging the basis on which your habits are formulated, you begin to see the possibility of liberation. In Half a chicken when the penny dropped about the small dish, the shackles came off and she let herself think big. She became an animal liberationist, of battery farmed chickens: of course she did.
The answer to the question, “what’s if for?” depends on the questions you ask, and don’t ask and what you do with the answers. And on the habits you formed without even thinking.
*This picture has nothing to do with this post, except that I did wonder why we were encouraging young children to take their lives in their hands climbing impossible large climbing frames, although risk taking is not a world away from extending what’s possible, in a (relatively) safe environment. Plus, Tim my brother looks cute on it