I don’t mean to be judgey but…
Can we talk about birding? Or birders? Or whatever these people are called?
I remember seeing that Jack Black and Owen Wilson movie about this a couple years ago and thinking mayhaps it was a hobby for the friendless or weirdoes or mid-life crisisers. You’d think this would make me an excellent candidate what with my woodsy-loving proclivities and lonerism – but the truth is I’m too lazy to hunt down and view-shoot something that’s not gonna end up getting likes on Instagram. ‘cause that’s all these people do – hunt and wait for hours like a preying leopard, and then just look and leave.
But I’m not even knocking that. In fact, I’m a big fan of just enjoying phenomena as it unfolds around us – but it’s more about the context of them missing everything else in their featherey fervor.
After the movie, I thought, “Aw, nah. That’s just Hollywood. These people can’t be that bad” – until a documentary came on confirming my condescending thoughts. These people will globe-trot and forgo actual leisurely holidays, all in the name of saying they saw some exotic or rare avian, marking them off the list, and making their buddies jealous when they get popular within their little community.
(Wait – how do they prove their “winnings” without pictures? Is it the honor system?
“The first rule of fowl club IS…. you do NOT lie about fowl club”)
Even so – I wasn’t buying that these people actually exist.
Until I met a dude during my jog, who very much fit the bill (beak?) as the birding description goes. He looked almost perturbed as he was shuffling through the woods with a purpose, so intent on finding his sky dwelling prize with his eyes, that he was meanwhile missing the ground below – and tripping over tree roots. It was funny because it was clear he was on his lunch break from some 9 to 5 type of job. With the dress shirt and charcoal slacks, pursed lips of determination, and tense shoulders that screamed “my only other forms of release are sex, alcohol, and fast food”, the binoculars he was gripping were the only thing out of place – albeit glaringly so. I suppose that was when I realized how great it is weird things like this exist for poor souls like these. Otherwise the hooker murder rates would be higher than those birds of theirs.
I mean – sure they seem like the least present nature-loving people I’ve ever met.
And sure that’s just because somewhere along the way they turned it into a dick measuring competish with check marks. But I imagine it’s one of those things where the moment they see it, it’s like that car-crash moment of pure awareness. The eye of the storm. The singularity instance in which the world around you whirls as you stand captivated, unaffected, entranced.
The judgment I’d initially made was in wondering – what kind of person takes off time from work (when they won’t even take one to recharge their bodies or minds) to rush off and see one bird? What kind of person scrapes together money for a plane ticket when they can’t even afford their bills? Or, worse -what kind of person does any of that and then doesn’t even revel in the experience of the beautiful locale they’ve forked funds out to visit, while they wait for their migrating directive to finally arrive, before turning around and going home again?
Why not kill two birds with one stone? #zing
Then that stone hit me. The answer is: all of us. We all do that.
We buy shiz we don’t need when we’re in debt to make ourselves feel better and we fly to gorgeous Hawaii – only to run on the treadmill at the gym or sit by a swimming pool. We bring itineraries scrawled out in military time to ensure we deprive ourselves of any opportunity for the kind of bliss that only spontaneity can offer. At least these guys have that one moment to look forward to where they know all that illusory bullshit is going to melt away. And it’ll feel like the first time they’ve ever seen such a creature at all.
If only for a fleeting, flying second.
So, big ups to the binocular armed eye snipers.
But that guy was kind of an asshole.