Still Animals

Ever watched one of those safari clips? The real ones. No music, no voice-over—just raw footage of a lion closing in on a limping wildebeest. The herd notices. Some freeze. Some run. The lion doesn’t pick the strongest. It doesn’t waste time. It chooses the slowest, the weakest, the one falling behind. It’s not personal. It’s just nature.

Wolves do the same. Killer whales too. They hunt in packs, pick off the isolated, the young, the unaware. It’s efficient. Strategic. Ruthless—but honest.

The only reason predators don’t always win is because the herd sometimes fights back. When the prey turns, when they swarm, when they stand their ground—often, the predator backs off. They know when the fight isn’t worth it. That’s the balance of nature.

Every year, during Africa’s Great Migration, over 6,000 wildebeest die. Some are eaten. Most drown or are trampled—pushed forward by fear, crushed by their own kind, lost in the chaos of movement. It’s a numbers game. A brutal one.

Now look at us. We pretend we’ve evolved. We pretend we’re more than instinct. But we behave just like every other animal on this planet—we just gave our behavior fancy names. In the wild, the predator kills to eat. In our world, we kill for money. Big bank takes little bank. That’s not evolution—that’s strategy. Same as the lion. Same as the wolf.

Our weak ones aren’t the slowest or the smallest. They’re the undereducated. The addicted. The unaware. The ones stuck in survival mode with no time to ask questions. And they get eaten—by debt, by bad loans, by fake leaders, by systems designed to drain them.

In nature, size matters. In our world, it’s the size of your bank account. Think about the Great Migration. Thousands of wildebeest crossing rivers full of waiting crocodiles. Some leap first—either brave or foolish. Crocs grab a few. The rest try to pass while the chaos is happening. Some make it. Some don’t.

What’s the difference between that and humans funneling into a big city every morning? Rush hour in New York. Downtown L.A. D.C. London. Thousands of people flooding the streets—heads down, trying to survive the day. Hoping they’re not the ones who get laid off. Or evicted. Or scammed. Or broken by the grind.

Some lead. Some get eaten. And the rest just try to make it to the other side.

Fish do the same. When predators push them to the surface, birds swoop down and feed. A whole different threat from above. That’s what it’s like when corporations squeeze the working class, then the government fines them, and the media mocks them for being poor.

Same instinct. Different species. Humans kill each other at shocking rates.

Over 26,000 murders every year in the U.S. Over 400,000 globally. Not for hunger. Not for territory. Just ego, money, pride, and desperation. 13,000 more die each year in America from drunk driving. Polar bears kill around 25,000 seals annually—and we call them savage.

At least animals don’t build industries around the kill. At least they don’t pretend to be better than what they are. We do. We film it. Monetize it. Defend it. We campaign on it. We put logos on it. We tell the herd it's safe—and when it isn’t, we sell them insurance.

We love watching nature shows because they remind us who we are. We binge reality TV for the same reason. Because humans are the most entertaining animals to watch. Capable of so much, but addicted to drama. Trapped by self-interest. Predictable in our cruelty. Unpredictable in our hypocrisy.

With all the intelligence we have—this is what we do with it? We could have built balance. We could have moved together. But we chose to become predators that lie about being predators. Even the lion has more honor than that.

So what animal are you? A sheep? A wildebeest? An elephant who defends the herd? A lion? A shark? A killer whale?

You can’t escape the food chain. You’re in it whether you know it or not. And pretending you’re not an animal doesn’t make you human. It just makes you easier to hunt. Predator or prey? You have pick.