Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Jimmy and the Angry Birds

Jimmy went walking at the nearby University a little while ago. He soon found himself being attacked by birds. He thought to himself, “what's up with this? Why are you attacking me, bird?” Of course, he said this only in his head and, of course, the bird did not respond.

Or, at least, the bird did not respond in the same language that Jimmy used to ask the question.

Unable to deduce why the bird was attacking him, Jimmy continued walking in the direction he wanted to go, for he thought, “I need to go this way to get to where I want to go.” But the bird's attack only grew more fierce and soon, Jimmy was running as fast as he could away from the bird.

It occurred to Jimmy as he was running fast away that there was a nest there on the ground and the path he took to get to where he wanted to go took him pretty close to the nest, which belonged to the bird. The path did not belong to Jimmy, but he supposed it was well within his rights to walk where he walked, the way he walked. Plus, the bird did not have any signs up, nor did the bird speak the language of Jimmy's preference, which was the lingua franca of Human Beings; very particular to Human Beings, indeed.

Jimmy later realized that he was too close to the bird's nest and that the bird was right to defend the area around the nest. Jimmy apologized within himself, as if the message would, somehow, eventually make it to Bird. He said, “Sorry Bird. I didn't know you were protecting your babies. My bad.”

Having heard Jimmy recount the tale of the Angry Bird, I was compelled to analyze it. Firstly, the bird was able to communicate to Jimmy in a way that got Jimmy to do what the bird wanted; namely, to keep Jimmy away from the nest. Jimmy,without knowing it, succeeded in communicating to the bird that he understood neither the bird's language nor message, and it was in response to this ignorance that the bird got more fierce on Jimmy.

The second observation is this: the Bird is not always so aggressive. Indeed, the Bird can be seen flying around peacefully, eating things, caring for her fledglings, standing on branches or electrical wires singing for no apparent-to-humans reason. The Bird does, however, possess a violent side, and this side is installed in the Nature Software Bird as the application Angry Bird. Any part of Nature using the Software Bird will possess the app Angry Bird otherwise the part of Nature operating as Bird will have a low survival rate (it seems that Nature is interested in Survival – this may have something to do with the song of the bird on the branch or electrical wire).

In the same way, any organism born of Nature will possess an Angry X software designed for the very same purpose: to survive. Not that it is the only Nature App contributing to the survival of the Natural Being, but it is one that has proven successful for the period of time Living Beings have been around.

Now, I daresay that an organism is not just a Single Form organism, like an amoeba (single cell) or a bird (single body) but a society of human beings, too, is in the category of Natural Living Organisms (NLO). As such, it too has all the codes and special apps found in Nature. So, while not all of its parts may express the same range of emotions, behaviors, interests, etc., indeed, the collection as a whole, once it is full and alive, will have, among all other codes and apps, a member or group of members who are the Angry Birds, so to speak. They will have the Angry code, they will be the defense mechanism of the NLO and, like the bird, when they are engaged, they will not yield unless their terms are met, one way or another. Their presence is natural, their function is natural and fueled by a most primitive Purpose, and there are only a few ways to stop them:
  1. take another path to where you want to go, do not consider that path your own, forfeit your “right” to take whatever path you want, or;
  2. simply run because, in the end, your goal was not to awaken the angry bird, nor to injure the angry bird or her children, but simply to achieve another end, or;
  3. engage in the bird's aggressive physical dialogue decisively and silence the bird once and for all; and don't feel badly about it when it is over, for you are a part of Nature.

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