Why I Am Done With Human Domestication

Are you a tame, wild, or domesticated animal?

Photo by Christopher Windus on Unsplash

The half acre of land that makes up my front yard is a mixture of lawn grasses, invasive plants, and native flora. Each morning, a menagerie of native mule and white-tailed deer, robins, and douglas squirrels commune and compete with introduced eastern gray squirrels, barred owls, and wild turkeys.

All are wild, although some of the mule deer and douglas squirrels are tamed due to their own choices and human meddling.

I, on the other hand, am domesticated. Uneasily I pace within the cage, both this physical home with window sizes and wall heights prescribed by international building codes, and the psychological home of for-profit work, infinite growth economics, and modern constructs of the good and proper life.

Inside, I am a wild animal, willing to be tamed but chafing at the bit of forced domestication.

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