Tag Archives: survival instincts

Freebird (Slight Return) ©️

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The air is cold and crisp, cutting across the mountains like a blade. I rise with the dawn, the world beneath me still wrapped in its gray quilt of mist. My wings stretch wide, every feather catching the sun’s first light, and I push off from the crag, dropping into the sky like a stone before the wind catches me, lifting me higher.

Far below, the river glints like a serpent winding through the valley. I tilt my head, scanning the water’s surface. Trout flash and leap, unaware of my shadow drifting across their world. Pine trees huddle close along the banks, ancient and patient, the wind whispering secrets through their boughs.

A hare darts from one shadow to another, ears pricked, heart thundering. I see the swaying grasses tremble where it passes, but I am not hungry. Not yet. My stomach is still warm from yesterday’s feast—rabbit, caught on the slope where the wildflowers grow. I circle high, content to glide, tracing the ridges and folds of the earth like an old map I’ve long since memorized.

Far off, a rival calls—sharp and piercing, slicing through the morning quiet. I bank left, turn my head, but do not answer. The sky belongs to no one. Not me, not him. Let him hunt where he pleases. The ridge belongs to me. I’ll not waste energy on games today.

Clouds gather on the western horizon, their bellies swollen and dark. Rain will come by dusk. I’ll return to the nest before then, the high branch where the wind can’t touch me. My mate will be there, feathers rustling, our chick already squawking for its next meal. I’ll bring him a fat trout, something easy to catch. He needs to grow strong, needs to know the way the wind bends around the mountains.

A flock of crows gathers below, tearing at some carcass left in the clearing. Bold and loud, they squabble, scattering in every direction when I dive—just a warning, just a reminder. They have their place, and I have mine.

I rise again, carried by the updraft, and watch the world move slowly beneath me. The deer step softly through the grass. A fox slips into the thicket, nose low, tail brushing the earth. My eyes trace the river’s bend, the far edge of my territory, and I know every stone, every shadow.

The sun climbs higher, warming the world, and I drift lazily, eyes half-closed, ears open to the hum of the wind. I belong here—woven into sky and stone and the wide, whispering valley.

When I finally turn for home, the wind cradles me gently, and I let it carry me. I’ll sleep with one eye open tonight, high above the ground, while the rain drums softly against the leaves, and the river dreams its way through the dark.

The Paradox of Fairness in War ©️

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War, by its nature, is the dissolution of order—a chaotic arena where the rules of civility are suspended, replaced by the raw calculus of survival, power, and dominance. Yet, amidst this maelstrom of destruction, humanity clings to an idea of fairness, as if the chaos itself should adhere to some moral framework. Why? Why call war “unfair” or “unjust” when its essence is the very abandonment of fairness? The answer lies not in the nature of war itself but in the contradictions of the human spirit.

The Human Need for Order in Chaos

At its core, labeling war as unjust reflects our innate desire to impose meaning on chaos. Humans are architects of systems—legal, moral, and philosophical. These systems provide the scaffolding for civilization, defining right and wrong, fairness and transgression. War, however, is the collapse of that structure, a freefall into a state where survival supersedes morality.

Calling war unfair is not an assessment of the battlefield; it is a desperate assertion of our humanity. It is our way of insisting that even in the darkest corners of existence, there must be rules. To not seek fairness, even in war, feels like surrendering to the void.

The Illusion of Just War

History has tried to sanitize war through doctrines like the “just war theory,” which seeks to impose ethical boundaries—no targeting civilians, no unnecessary suffering, no excessive force. These guidelines are noble, but they are illusions. In the heat of conflict, the lines blur. The atrocities deemed “unjust” are often the very tools of victory. Bombing cities, starving populations, deploying advanced weaponry—these are not aberrations; they are strategies.

To call these acts unfair is to admit a deeper truth: we want war to be something it is not. We want it to be controllable, a game with rules, when in reality, it is chaos wearing the mask of purpose.

War as the Ultimate Test of Morality

And yet, perhaps the very act of naming war’s atrocities unjust is a sign of hope. It is an acknowledgment that war tests our morality to its breaking point. The human spirit, even in its darkest hour, rebels against the idea that might makes right. To cry “unfair” is to resist the dehumanization of war, to cling to the belief that some part of us remains untouchable, even in the inferno.

The paradox is this: war is inhumane, but the judgment of fairness within it is profoundly human. It is the dying soldier cursing the heavens, the survivor mourning the innocent, the historian documenting the atrocities—all saying, in their own way, “This should not be.”

The Limitless Conclusion

War is neither fair nor unfair; it simply is. It is a reflection of humanity’s darkest capabilities, a reminder of what happens when reason gives way to rage. But to call war unfair is not folly; it is a refusal to accept that this is all we are. It is an act of rebellion, a whisper of hope in the abyss.

We label war’s horrors unjust because we are more than war. We are architects of dreams, not just destroyers. In naming the unfairness of war, we reassert our limitless potential to transcend it. War, for all its chaos, becomes a mirror—not of fairness, but of our relentless longing for a world where such judgments are no longer necessary.