MAN THE CARNIVORE

Man is the only animal who kills his prey for reasons other than survival or rather to procure food for survival, where other animals hunt to eat.

What an irony! Right from childhood, one's perception about carnivores is marked with deep impressions of graphic visualisation of a lion stalking its prey, straight out of the pictures of jungle adventure stories. We really do not see ourselves belonging to the realm of carnivores.

Why? Is a child's mind biased or wired to give one aspect of predation most of the space? 

I don't think so. It's how we are taught by adults who tell us tales of beasts stalking beasts in a particular way. We don't give the 'carnivorous' aspect much attention, predators sans the carnivorous element. Wild animals, chasing their prey, killing them ruthlessly - upto here a child's mind is over saturated, so he doesn't feel any urge to follow a hunt to the 't'. And that we learn as information alright but not in the proper balance. 

What if he thinks suddenly : "Was George Bush hungry whilegoing after Bin Laden?"
WOW hold it right there!
The perception of "danger" (relevant to killing, eating and living - in that order) is strangely constructed, - a denial of sorts. When a parent reads out a story to a young child, a story of hunters and jungles and of course, carnivores, we hate to think beyond that. Because at the end, while a lion is helping himself to a freshly hunted buck or deer, Man still stands, appetite satiated - yet he has a gun in his hand and a vicious mind, ready to hunt down a fellow human being.

To justify whenever man gives in to "Kill the Enemy" order, he has to be ruthless and cruel. But we justify genocide by fighting a war, where his country eggs him on to kill 'for honour', with medals and stripes and crosses. So he shoots a fellow human being carrying a flag of colours alien to him. Back from the battle-field, we rinse our minds off the traces of suppressed guilt and make war movies, where predators are heroes, taking part in genocide, so what if he speaks in an unknown tongue.

I wonder how we percieve, define, and express in our own personalised form, the concept of "Danger". Let's ask the first man we see tomorrow during the morning jog, "which species is the most dangerous?" . He will say anything but "Us".
One day perhaps we will learn the lesson. Someone from us only? And to him I say these words when I read in my private mind, something called "WAR APPEASED" : 

"The Hating Hearts shall weep before you,
The Gore and Bloodshed,
Each kill mocking you, 
Of Embodied Hatred.

A Child shall know --
A Dawn when Angels awaken,
In Silence, of Peace spoken,
To Embrace Forgiveness again,
As the widow and the orphan weep,
Your words shall softly sweep,
Cleansing the Bloodied Trail,
Loving rose-hearts blooming forever to prevail --
before you Hating Hearts shall bow.
Everything the Child shall see
Just like it was all meant to be. "