revelations from a goose blind

[ctw5000]

I am an individual that takes advantage of the hunting seasons in my province. It is a very popular thing to do where I live. I eat the animals that I kill and I hunt ethically. I get into arguments all the time from people that eat meat bought from various big chain grocery stores.. they always ask how I could kill a defenceless animal, I will usually reply that I believe anyone that consumes meat should have to feel what it's like to take the life of an animal. That whole issue aside, last weekend I went out for migratory bird..I had quite a few revelations during this morning hunting trip that I thought I should share..

When hunting migratory bird (ducks and geese) the hunter will find the area that the birds feed. Once you find the field, you need to monitor the area to see if they move before they go back to the roosting area for the night. You then need to go back in the morning before they come off the water and set up for the hunt. This includes several dozen life like decoys to fool the birds into thinking they are landing into a safe area. the hunter is also concealed in a ground blind that is covered in fake grass to blend into the field so that he is essentially invisible. The final "lure" is an artificial caller that's used to draw the birds into the area and make them believe the decoys are real.
I was by myself last weekend and set up in my blind waiting for the sun to rise and I was hit with the striking similarities between what I was doing to these 2D animals and what 4D is possibly doing to us! A goose could never understand what a shotgun is or how it works. The distance is so great between the densities i we cannot even begin to fathom what these higher densities are doing (aside from what the C's tell us).

This realization hit me hard and made me feel slightly ashamed. I continued in my blind and kept look out as I feel strongly about getting your hands dirty when it comes to consuming meat. I ended up passing on quite a few shots as I know migratory birds mate for life, quite a few had young ones and when I did shoot I tried to take both birds..Unfortunately as sometimes happens you don t get a clean kill and you need to track the bird down and end the suffering that you caused it. This happened and I felt sad for the suffering and fear I caused.

I then thought if I wasn't by myself would I still have been so selective and emotional? I realized that the answer was no. I would probably still have these thoughts and feeling but I would most likely push them aside and not be selective in my shots and not care as much about wounding the animal. The main reason would be not showing weakness and just the competitiveness of the shooting. This realization brought about alot of questions. Who am I really? How much is me and how much is me trying to fit in??What would people think of the real me??

Then another realization hit me, the whole time I was thinking about these concepts and seeing myself in a slightly different light, I was excited about being able to write something on the forum that might be considered somewhat relevant..I was actually fantasizing about being able to contribute..This brought up even more questions for me. In the end I think that all of the feelings I had were genuine and important, and the fact that the forum was on my mind was that there are alot of people that I look up to here and it bothers me that most of you know nothing about me.
Where as I feel I know alot about a number of you.

 

[Alada]

I think many here might go through a similar process given the same position, at least I can imagine myself pondering similar things.

I think the fruit of it is in asking questions of oneself; making observations; noticing more; and so being a little more awake then we were before – and so it goes.

Very healthy to keep asking questions of oneself, or so I think. ;)

 

[webglider]

quote from ctw5000:

This realization hit me hard and made me feel slightly ashamed. I continued in my blind and kept look out as I feel strongly about getting your hands dirty when it comes to consuming meat. I ended up passing on quite a few shots as I know migratory birds mate for life, quite a few had young ones and when I did shoot I tried to take both birds..Unfortunately as sometimes happens you don t get a clean kill and you need to track the bird down and end the suffering that you caused it. This happened and I felt sad for the suffering and fear I caused.

I then thought if I wasn't by myself would I still have been so selective and emotional? I realized that the answer was no. I would probably still have these thoughts and feeling but I would most likely push them aside and not be selective in my shots and not care as much about wounding the animal. The main reason would be not showing weakness and just the competitiveness of the shooting. This realization brought about alot of questions. Who am I really? How much is me and how much is me trying to fit in??What would people think of the real me??

Then another realization hit me, the whole time I was thinking about these concepts and seeing myself in a slightly different light, I was excited about being able to write something on the forum that might be considered somewhat relevant..I was actually fantasizing about being able to contribute..This brought up even more questions for me. In the end I think that all of the feelings I had were genuine and important, and the fact that the forum was on my mind was that there are alot of people that I look up to here and it bothers me that most of you know nothing about me.
Where as I feel I know alot about a number of you.

It sounds to me that through your comparison of the technological advantage you have over the geese, to the one that 4D STS has over us, you were shaken by your realization of the horror of the situation that we're in. This seems to have provoked some soul searching on your part, some pangs of conscience and feelings of empathy. You tried to minimize damage to family groups, and to put the bird that you didn't kill out of it's misery by tracking it down.

I've been spending some time researching what goes on in factory farms and all I have to say is that the birds you shoot are lucky.

I think that all we can do on this forum is be honest with yourselves, to understand our programming, and make conscious choices to rewire our machines.

So now that you are conscious of the difference in your motivations when you are hunting alone and with others, you can now consciously observe yourself more closely and perhaps even choose how you want to conduct yourself when you find yourself hunting with others again. In any case, you now have some knowledge about yourself that you can apply to other situations as well. For example, perhaps there are other public situations in which you act in a way that makes you begin to question how true you are being to yourself and to your own code of honor. Perhaps you find that this is a pattern in your interactions with others which gives rise to a mechanical behavior of which you were not previously aware, but which determines much of the way you engage with the world.

If so, this would open endless opportunities for you for self observation.

In the end I think that all of the feelings I had were genuine and important, and the fact that the forum was on my mind was that there are alot of people that I look up to here and it bothers me that most of you know nothing about me.
Where as I feel I know alot about a number of you.

I would say that many of us are continually surprised and shaken about how little we know about ourselves. We're all mirrors for each other, and the more we honestly participate in the desire to do the Work, the more we help one another as well as ourselves. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience.

 

[Redrock12]

Thanks for sharing ctw.
I too have considered the humaneness of killing and eating a wild animal over eating domesticated animals.
A deer lives its entire life the way it was meant to, grazing on wild grasses and roaming free, unhindered by fences and not confined to a feedlot. The only downside to such a life would be a highly probable slow and painful death by predators. So a quick and relatively painless and unexpected death by a high-powered rifle is, imo, probably a most humane and externally considerate option.
Contrast this with a domesticated cow: subject to castration if it's a male, forced to consume unnatural feed and antibiotics, in many cases up to its knees in its own waste, with the final humility of being herded into a slaughterhouse, with all of its attendant horrors and pain.

 

[thevenusian]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ctw5000.

Like Alada, I can easily see myself going through the same sort of questioning in a similar situation.

I think your experience has made you acutely aware of something about the natural order of things in life here in 3-D STS world and our place in it. Its an insight many people don't have. Being aware of reality as it is isn't always comforting.

 

[agni]

I too have considered the humaneness of killing and eating a wild animal over eating domesticated animals.
A deer lives its entire life the way it was meant to, grazing on wild grasses and roaming free, unhindered by fences and not confined to a feedlot. The only downside to such a life would be a highly probable slow and painful death by predators. So a quick and relatively painless and unexpected death by a high-powered rifle is, imo, probably a most humane and externally considerate option.
Contrast this with a domesticated cow: subject to castration if it's a male, forced to consume unnatural feed and antibiotics, in many cases up to its knees in its own waste, with the final humility of being herded into a slaughterhouse, with all of its attendant horrors and pain.

I beg to differ. I mean, come on, let me save you from the painful and slwo death by the predator by externally considerately shooting the animal ? I wonder if that's how STS thinks of us: "Let us save humans from the horrors of objective reality." :)

In animal kingdom, with exception of volnurable offsprings, predator usually take out sick animals. And unlike with humans with guns, I think animal has a fair chance to escape predator vs no fair chance to escape from being shot remotely. I would not exactly call killing an animal with a gun to be more humane in comparison with death by natural predators.

I think killing is killing irregardless, and in any case is STS, we - STS live at expense of others lives. I mean, deer eating grass, and grass eating minerals is STS, no ?

Thinking and realizing at what cost we live better be damn pretty good justified :p

 

[webglider]

quote from Agni:

And unlike with humans with guns, I think animal has a fair chance to escape predator vs no fair chance to escape from being shot remotely. I would not exactly call killing an animal with a gun to be more humane in comparison with death by natural predators.

I think killing is killing irregardless, and in any case is STS, we - STS live at expense of others lives. I mean, deer eating grass, and grass eating minerals is STS, no ?

Thinking and realizing at what cost we live better be damn pretty good justified

I wonder what triggered this judgmental response. Humans can not run fast, can not fly, do not have thick protective hide, do not have a keen sense of smell, and only a middling ability to see which is nothing compared to the sight of an eagle.

The only advantage we have is our brains which way way back in the past we used to sharpen sticks and stones, to create traps, and to fashion projectiles in order to kill prey.

Thought of in this way, it is natural for humans to use a gun to bring down a bird because our physiology does not afford us alternatives to using tools some of which are weapons.

The tension in this discussion is not, I think, between killing an animal by gun, but that method versus raising an animal under brutal conditions such as those found on a factory farm.

I think a quick death is preferable to months or even years spent in torture. Everything eats, and everything dies. Some animals will tear their prey apart and eat it while it is still alive. That is, unfortunately, the way things are.

I personally will not kill an animal for food, but I can say that only because I've never been in circumstances where I had to do so. Maybe if I were, I would.

This is not a beautiful world - it's full of horror and pain. But we're all responsible for some of that horror and pain because of our great intelligence and the uses it is put to by our mechanical nature.

At least a bird that is shot on the wing does not suffer for an eternity in a wire cage, and has had a chance to live the life it was meant to live.

 

[Buddy]

I am an individual that takes advantage of the hunting seasons in my province. It is a very popular thing to do where I live. I eat the animals that I kill and I hunt ethically. I get into arguments all the time from people that eat meat bought from various big chain grocery stores.. they always ask how I could kill a defenceless animal, I will usually reply that I believe anyone that consumes meat should have to feel what it's like to take the life of an animal. That whole issue aside, last weekend I went out for migratory bird..I had quite a few revelations during this morning hunting trip that I thought I should share..

When hunting migratory bird (ducks and geese) the hunter will find the area that the birds feed. Once you find the field, you need to monitor the area to see if they move before they go back to the roosting area for the night. You then need to go back in the morning before they come off the water and set up for the hunt. This includes several dozen life like decoys to fool the birds into thinking they are landing into a safe area. the hunter is also concealed in a ground blind that is covered in fake grass to blend into the field so that he is essentially invisible. The final "lure" is an artificial caller that's used to draw the birds into the area and make them believe the decoys are real.

Dang, ctw5000. Great piece of writing. Seems like lots of available analogy in that story potentially useful to the Work.

I was by myself last weekend and set up in my blind waiting for the sun to rise and I was hit with the striking similarities between what I was doing to these 2D animals and what 4D is possibly doing to us! A goose could never understand what a shotgun is or how it works. The distance is so great between the densities i we cannot even begin to fathom what these higher densities are doing (aside from what the C's tell us).

This realization hit me hard and made me feel slightly ashamed. I continued in my blind and kept look out as I feel strongly about getting your hands dirty when it comes to consuming meat. I ended up passing on quite a few shots as I know migratory birds mate for life, quite a few had young ones and when I did shoot I tried to take both birds..Unfortunately as sometimes happens you don t get a clean kill and you need to track the bird down and end the suffering that you caused it. This happened and I felt sad for the suffering and fear I caused.

I then thought if I wasn't by myself would I still have been so selective and emotional? I realized that the answer was no. I would probably still have these thoughts and feeling but I would most likely push them aside and not be selective in my shots and not care as much about wounding the animal. The main reason would be not showing weakness and just the competitiveness of the shooting. This realization brought about alot of questions. Who am I really? How much is me and how much is me trying to fit in??What would people think of the real me??

Then another realization hit me, the whole time I was thinking about these concepts and seeing myself in a slightly different light, I was excited about being able to write something on the forum that might be considered somewhat relevant..I was actually fantasizing about being able to contribute..This brought up even more questions for me. In the end I think that all of the feelings I had were genuine and important, and the fact that the forum was on my mind was that there are alot of people that I look up to here and it bothers me that most of you know nothing about me.
Where as I feel I know alot about a number of you.

Sounds like you allowed your internal language to have a voice and to have a turn at expression. I have come to see that as a valuable exercise.

FWIW, I really like that topic title too and just wanted to say thanks for sharing that post!

 

[Ekios]

Thank you for that great sharing :)

I'm having every day a little "moment" a bit similar as yours when I feed my daughter's red fish in its aquarium : I'm trying to extrapolate the red fish situation as a 2D being, "trapped" (in my point of view) in a bubble where he can breath, live, and where the only moment of action is when I decide to feed him.

It makes me every single time wondering in what way he perceives his environment in comparison of me, if it is at the same proportion of my own perception of my environment compared at a 4D beings who would be looking over me.

I mean for the fish, here he is in his little aquarium, alone, he can probably see through the glass, with the distortion of the bubble form. I know he can dissociate us since i'm the one feeding him so he gets crazy when I pass near him and he ignores everybody else.

When I change its water I have to pull it out for a second or two and place him into another recipient, everytime of course it is a moment of panic for him, he tries to swim away from my (gigantic) hand when I try to grab him. Once everything is clean and changed, again I have to pull it out in the air, scare him to death again, and put it back in his bubble.

I'm trying every-time to figure how I would feel if a being from a higher density would do the same with my own aquarium, how I would react, how I would "see" it ...

Ps : here, a little picture of my shrink ;)

 

[Esote]

...
I think your experience has made you acutely aware of something about the natural order of things in life here in 3-D STS world and our place in it. Its an insight many people don't have. Being aware of reality as it is isn't always comforting.

Here is an explanation why we are so much indulging into wishful thinking, as a way to escape this far from comforting reality...

Compassion is one step to make the difference between STO vs. STS tendencies, AFAIK

Thanks for sharing your revelations, ctw5000.

 

[agni]

I wonder what triggered this judgmental response.

I am curious what you see judgmental in what I wrote. I do not judge anyone or anything here. It just merely my thoughts and observations on the subject.

Personally, If I would have a choice I would rather kill my food by hand, just for the sake not to disassociate from the act of killing for what it is, what it takes and at what cost it takes to keep my own life sustained.

 

[ctw5000]

I too have considered the humaneness of killing and eating a wild animal over eating domesticated animals.
A deer lives its entire life the way it was meant to, grazing on wild grasses and roaming free, unhindered by fences and not confined to a feedlot. The only downside to such a life would be a highly probable slow and painful death by predators. So a quick and relatively painless and unexpected death by a high-powered rifle is, imo, probably a most humane and externally considerate option.
Contrast this with a domesticated cow: subject to castration if it's a male, forced to consume unnatural feed and antibiotics, in many cases up to its knees in its own waste, with the final humility of being herded into a slaughterhouse, with all of its attendant horrors and pain.

I beg to differ. I mean, come on, let me save you from the painful and slwo death by the predator by externally considerately shooting the animal ? I wonder if that's how STS thinks of us: "Let us save humans from the horrors of objective reality." :)

In animal kingdom, with exception of volnurable offsprings, predator usually take out sick animals. And unlike with humans with guns, I think animal has a fair chance to escape predator vs no fair chance to escape from being shot remotely. I would not exactly call killing an animal with a gun to be more humane in comparison with death by natural predators.

I think killing is killing irregardless, and in any case is STS, we - STS live at expense of others lives. I mean, deer eating grass, and grass eating minerals is STS, no ?

Thinking and realizing at what cost we live better be damn pretty good justified :p

In my neck of the woods a deer has limited ways to live out it's life.. Shot by a hunter, starvation from a harsh winter(known as winter kill), hit by a moving vehicle, and finally live long enough until they get sick or to slow to outrun predators and get eaten alive..
Getting shot doesn t nessesaritly mean quick ending either. A non lethal shot is quite common, an ethical hunter will track the animal for hours covering miles to find and kill the animal.

 

[ctw5000]

I am an individual that takes advantage of the hunting seasons in my province. It is a very popular thing to do where I live. I eat the animals that I kill and I hunt ethically. I get into arguments all the time from people that eat meat bought from various big chain grocery stores.. they always ask how I could kill a defenceless animal, I will usually reply that I believe anyone that consumes meat should have to feel what it's like to take the life of an animal. That whole issue aside, last weekend I went out for migratory bird..I had quite a few revelations during this morning hunting trip that I thought I should share..

When hunting migratory bird (ducks and geese) the hunter will find the area that the birds feed. Once you find the field, you need to monitor the area to see if they move before they go back to the roosting area for the night. You then need to go back in the morning before they come off the water and set up for the hunt. This includes several dozen life like decoys to fool the birds into thinking they are landing into a safe area. the hunter is also concealed in a ground blind that is covered in fake grass to blend into the field so that he is essentially invisible. The final "lure" is an artificial caller that's used to draw the birds into the area and make them believe the decoys are real.

Dang, ctw5000. Great piece of writing. Seems like lots of available analogy in that story potentially useful to the Work.

I was by myself last weekend and set up in my blind waiting for the sun to rise and I was hit with the striking similarities between what I was doing to these 2D animals and what 4D is possibly doing to us! A goose could never understand what a shotgun is or how it works. The distance is so great between the densities i we cannot even begin to fathom what these higher densities are doing (aside from what the C's tell us).

This realization hit me hard and made me feel slightly ashamed. I continued in my blind and kept look out as I feel strongly about getting your hands dirty when it comes to consuming meat. I ended up passing on quite a few shots as I know migratory birds mate for life, quite a few had young ones and when I did shoot I tried to take both birds..Unfortunately as sometimes happens you don t get a clean kill and you need to track the bird down and end the suffering that you caused it. This happened and I felt sad for the suffering and fear I caused.

I then thought if I wasn't by myself would I still have been so selective and emotional? I realized that the answer was no. I would probably still have these thoughts and feeling but I would most likely push them aside and not be selective in my shots and not care as much about wounding the animal. The main reason would be not showing weakness and just the competitiveness of the shooting. This realization brought about alot of questions. Who am I really? How much is me and how much is me trying to fit in??What would people think of the real me??

Then another realization hit me, the whole time I was thinking about these concepts and seeing myself in a slightly different light, I was excited about being able to write something on the forum that might be considered somewhat relevant..I was actually fantasizing about being able to contribute..This brought up even more questions for me. In the end I think that all of the feelings I had were genuine and important, and the fact that the forum was on my mind was that there are alot of people that I look up to here and it bothers me that most of you know nothing about me.
Where as I feel I know alot about a number of you.

Sounds like you allowed your internal language to have a voice and to have a turn at expression. I have come to see that as a valuable exercise.

FWIW, I really like that topic title too and just wanted to say thanks for sharing that post!

It feels good to be "real" if only for a short time Buddy, thank you.

 

[ctw5000]

Thank you for that great sharing :)

I'm having every day a little "moment" a bit similar as yours when I feed my daughter's red fish in its aquarium : I'm trying to extrapolate the red fish situation as a 2D being, "trapped" (in my point of view) in a bubble where he can breath, live, and where the only moment of action is when I decide to feed him.

It makes me every single time wondering in what way he perceives his environment in comparison of me, if it is at the same proportion of my own perception of my environment compared at a 4D beings who would be looking over me.

I mean for the fish, here he is in his little aquarium, alone, he can probably see through the glass, with the distortion of the bubble form. I know he can dissociate us since i'm the one feeding him so he gets crazy when I pass near him and he ignores everybody else.

When I change its water I have to pull it out for a second or two and place him into another recipient, everytime of course it is a moment of panic for him, he tries to swim away from my (gigantic) hand when I try to grab him. Once everything is clean and changed, again I have to pull it out in the air, scare him to death again, and put it back in his bubble.

I'm trying every-time to figure how I would feel if a being from a higher density would do the same with my own aquarium, how I would react, how I would "see" it ...

Ps : here, a little picture of my shrink ;)

We seem to have been doing the same internal exercise Ekios, trying to put ourselves in these 2d animals and trying to feel what they feel. I wonder how acurate our assumptions are..It really shows me the extent of 4th to 3rd and how clueless we are..

 

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

Ps : here, a little picture of my shrink ;)

Ekios,

the difference I see with the fish in the aquarium is that you can set it free and give it a more happier live. We used to have goldfish too in a aquarium and when one of them died, we got new ones. on one of those buys a lady in the shop refused us to sell us (my son and I) a new goldfish, telling me they were not made for this kind of life. A goldfish ( as far I can see from the picture you have a goldfish) needs space otherwise it stunts its growth (goldfish can become really tall). In a bulb like on the picture the fish cannot grow and it will stunt and die fairly quickly. My son heard the lady explaining that and when we got home we took the goldfish we still had in the aquarium and brought them to a lake in a nearby woods. It made my son a happy boy to do that.