The life philosophy of a bird, and why it matters

So I was sitting on the backyard cliff the other day after a morning run, per usual, and saw this tiny woodpecker climb a pine. It was poking the bark with its beak, apparently looking for something. It climbed a few feet, flapping its wings whenever the grip of its claws on the bark was failing, and finally flew away.

And so it hit me - people may not be birds, but perhaps we should be. More like them, anyway.

You see what I mean? While I cannot be completely sure that my statement is accurate, I'm supposing the little woodpecker asked no one's permission to go looking for whatever it was looking for. It just flew to the pine because it wanted to, tried to find whatever it wanted to find, worked hard with the task, and then flew away - presumably to the next tree to continue the search.

There are no rules for the bird. It can come and go as it pleases, finding food for itself. It doesn't have to think about working or paying taxes or voting. It wastes no thought for what the other birds and the bird community are expecting from it.

There are no rules, no laws the bird should heed. It is an unconditional finders keepers world.

You might point to the fact that birds are too primal a species, with only small brain capacity, to form any sort of government and legal systems - that if they had the intellect, they would do it. But I think this is completely off the point. It matters not that the birds aren't as smart as people. It matters that they are free as birds. No rules or punishment threats affect their everyday life. They simply do whatever they want, ignoring all and any social norms - because there aren't any.

What I'm saying is that people would do well to consider integrating this part of the life philosophy of a bird to their own lives. While being intelligent, they could be more adventurous and more disregarding of inexistent rules and social norms. People could go do whatever they wanted, look for whatever they wanted to look for, spend their time as they see fit, as well.

The bird's actions hurt no one. It wasn't spying on its neighbor or gossiping about what some robin did or said.

It was just minding its own business.