The (anxious) birds of the air and (toiling) lilies of the field

It’s not uncommon when you’re reading philosophy, self-help, or religious and spiritual literature, to come across analogies to animals. Often these analogies can be insightful and even inspiring. However, one commonly used analogy really irks me. Specifically, it is the analogy between animals and humans meant to juxtapose how animals are 'so much more relaxed', 'calm' and 'free from anxiety' compared to us humans. You can find quotes to this effect spread around a multitude of writers from disparate philosophical and religious ideologies. Perhaps the most famous and ubiquitous quote cited to these ends is in the gospel of Mathew 6:25-34 which contains the 'birds of the air' and 'lilies of the field' imagery.

In this blog post I am going to push back against this thinking.

Have you ever seen a bird in your front yard? Go and look at one now. What is the bird doing? Most likely the bird is following a predictable pattern. It’ll do one peck at the ground, and then look around at three different angles in a frenzied manner to make sure nothing is coming to kill it. Then the bird will do two more pecks only to rapidly look about at four more angles. Inevitably the bird will see the slightest movement from afar and fly off immediately. Does this look like calm and anxiety free living do you? I don’t think so. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing a bit, but that bird looks like the very definition of anxiety manifested. Now look at a squirrel, or a mouse, or a deer. They display similar behavior, always hiding and ducking and avoiding so they don’t get eaten. Sounds anxious to me. 

Now let's take one of my favorite animal examples. Musk oxen and Big Horn Sheep. These animals live in a harem mating structure, where one male establishes dominance and mates with a group of females to the near exclusion of his male peers. How is this done? At the beginning of the mating season the Musk Oxen Bulls and Big Horn Sheep Rams establish a dominance hierarchy by enduring a grueling gauntlet of fighting and head butting against potential contenders. It's usually a winner take all outcome, the highest of evolutionary stakes. Once the hierarch is established, the dominant bull/ram spends the entirely of the mating season either inseminating his harem, actively fighting off challengers, or completely consumed with unwavering vigilance. He is constantly on edge, looking for every threat to his dominion. After a complete mating season, the males have lost an enormous amount of body mass from malnutrition and over exertion, all their health indicators go to shit, and not infrequently the male dies from sheer exhaustion and lack of self care. Is this the pinnacle of animals being 'calm and worry free' that we should emulate? 

I think it would actually be more helpful to reframe this "look at how calm animals are... and so should you" platitude to its opposite. Something more along the lines of "look at all these animals. They’re super anxious. It’s normal for you to be anxious too because you are also an animal." This normalizes the presence of anxiety ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, and alleviates meta-anxiety (the worrying about worrying). 

Adopting this perspective we now have a chance at liberation from or at least toleration of anxiety. We have the framework for using anxiety as a helpful barometer, aiding us in our life. With our (likely) unique ability as humans to observe, disassociate, and question thoughts, we can now overcome this very animal thing called anxiety. We can see the anxiety as it is, not feel shame for having felt it, and reinterpret the anxiety as a helpful signal, aiding us to get down to its root and address what is causing it. Let's see a bird or lily do that!

While I must reiterate that I really don't like the imagery of animals being calm and humans not; in the end, I usually like where these teachings lead. They usually end at some kind of be 'aware of your anxiousness', 'be more in tuned with your natural flow'. Often these writers get to the real antidote of anxiety, which is a confident and well grounded belief in your future self; that no matter what comes, you will have the presence of mine, the resources, and the energy to deal with any circumstance. It’s putting trust in your future, self, to deal with the real event, when it really happens, so that you can free yourself of the burden of that ruminating over that future time.