Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
Why Are People So Desperate to Control Everything?
Have you ever noticed that the things minding their own business usually scare people more than the things actually causing trouble?
I will tell you all a raccoon story.
I live in the city, but in one of those older areas where somebody once remembered that human beings might enjoy a little space. There is a nearby forest, canals, big backyards, and long stretches of connected green behind the houses, like neighborhoods used to be before every home got turned into a glorified storage box with a mailbox attached. Because of that, we still have wildlife. Ducks, foxes, coyotes, iguanas, raccoons, possums, neighbor cats. I have watched generations of them grow up on my cameras.
And here is the thing: none of these animals spend their day plotting the downfall of civilization. They are not holding meetings. They are not filing complaints. They are not sitting in committee trying to make your life worse. But humans cannot stand what they cannot control. Show them a fox or a coyote and they panic. Let an iguana trim a tree or leave a mark on a deck and they act like it declared war. They recoil at possums for the crime of being ugly, and they blame cats for everything short of inflation.
The raccoons are smarter than the rest. You almost never see them unless you have night cameras like I do. They move like little bandits with a graduate degree.
So humans, being the tender and compassionate creatures they claim to be, go out of their way to provide what they call humane animal control — which, translated into plain English, often means killing them so people do not have to look at them and can keep feeling in charge of the scenery. That is the real love affair humans have with concrete. Concrete stays put. Concrete does not improvise. Concrete does not make you feel like nature forgot to ask permission.
Anyway, back to the raccoons.
About two years ago, Mama Raccoon — a fairly large one — used to come around after midnight and scavenge for food, usually whatever cat food had been left out. Then one night she showed up with three little ones. And they were absurdly cute. Tiny balls of fur with masks on, like little burglars that had wandered out of a children’s book. They got themselves into trouble, too. Sometimes they would get stuck in places they had no business climbing into, and I would rescue them. Then I would leave them alone.
As time passed, one of them hurt his front leg and now limps a little. So naturally, we call him Limpy. Life has a way of handing out names that no committee would approve.
The other two are still around too. Sometimes they show up together, sometimes separately. They come around around midnight. The possum comes later, like the night shift relieving the first crew.
They do not hurt anyone. They do not live by the stories people tell to justify getting rid of them. A great many of those stories are handed out by people who simply cannot tolerate a world they do not completely manage. And Mama Raccoon? She is gone now. Probably humanely captured. Maybe killed. That is often how human mercy works once paperwork gets involved.
And why?
Because humans need control.
You need religion to tell you what to think, and what is good or evil.
You need government to tell you what is allowed.
You need designers to tell you how to dress.
You need experts to tell you what to invest in and how to plan your future.
So wait — I thought humans wanted control?
No. What they want is the perception of control. They want the comforting little theater of it. They want to feel that somebody is driving, even if that somebody is drunk, blind, and charging tolls.
The problem starts when control becomes real. When it shows up wearing a badge, carrying a clipboard, issuing permits, and telling you what can live in your yard, what can happen in your house, what is allowed in your community, and eventually what is acceptable in your own mind. And I should mention, since it matters, that government is made out of people. Same species. Same habits. Same ego. Same appetite for telling somebody else what to do.
Am I arguing for chaos or anarchy? No. That is the usual cheap answer people throw out when you question authority. Government, at best, is a necessary evil — an inefficient ruler we lay across our own lives because too many people would rather be managed than manage themselves. Too many want government to save them, protect them, organize them, excuse them, and, if possible, send the bill to somebody else.
But that should never be the goal.
The goal should be to take care of yourself as much as you can — the way Mama Raccoon did — raising her young, finding food, solving problems, surviving in the dark without a committee, a permit, a consultant, or a five-point plan. She did just fine until somebody decided they needed to help.
That is the joke, isn’t it? Nature usually knows what it is doing. It is the civilized people who keep interfering until the place looks tidy enough to die in.
