Chickens

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be a chicken. To live in a farm with a big, loud rooster bossing over you, to have your babies taken away even before they are born, to be hauled from one place to another in tiny, claustrophobic cages, to watch friends and family be slaughtered, and then to finally be slaughtered yourself.

And then I see one chicken, pecking away happily at her breakfast, with a few chirpy baby chicks trailing her, squawking every now and then, feeling good to be alive. I wonder if it’s because she doesn’t know what is in store for her. Maybe she doesn’t know that her entire worth is only till she lays healthy eggs or is sold off as flesh. That teaches me that maybe sometimes it’s okay to not know the bigger picture. That sometimes it’s okay to focus on the minuscule, with an eye only on what’s in front of you. That sometimes the only way to be happy is to put one foot in front of the other.

Then I think, what if the happy chicken does know what the big picture is? Maybe she’s seen the truck loaded with the cramped cages and maybe she notices how her eggs go missing every time she takes a walk. If so, then it shows me the immense amount of courage that she must have to live in the middle of trauma and be happy. It teaches me that sometimes you have to hold your head high above the suffering and open your heart wide enough to encompass the pain, yet have space for love and happiness.

Lessons everywhere you look. Life is funny that way.