Decompensatus Abbynormalum

"Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must be constantly defended and parasites forever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context? Animals in the wild are, in practice, free neither in space nor in time, nor in their personal relations. In theory — that is, as a simple physical possibility — an animal could pick up and go, flaunting all the social conventions and boundaries proper for its species. But such an event is less likely to happen than for a member of our own species, say a shopkeeper with all the usual ties— to family, to friends, to society — to drop everything and walk away from his life with only the spare change in his pockets and the clothes on his frame. If a man, boldest and most intelligent of creatures, won’t wander from place to place, a stranger to all, beholden to none, why would an animal, which by temperament is far more conservative?" – Yann Martel, LIFE OF PIE

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