I have lived long enough among squirrels and senators, mice and merchants, to suspect that the word “survival” has become tragically misused, as though it were a synonym for conquest. It is not.
A man does not survive because he beats the rest of the world to the apple tree, nor because he has constructed a loftier wall around his garden than his neighbor. No, he survives in the most meaningful sense, only when he ensures the orchard remains—its fruit not devoured, but shared.
Let the foxes take heed.
I once watched a caterpillar inch its way along a slender pine branch, pausing now and then to contemplate a droplet of morning dew or a mossy diversion. It did not trample the ants. It did not hoard the dew. It moved along, slow but sure, and in its quiet progression taught me that existence, true and enduring, does not rely upon domination but upon continuity.
Survival, rightly understood, is a gentle art, not a war.
But we, the self-congratulatory species—so fond of pronouncements and pyramids—have cultivated a habit of believing that to survive is to outpace our kin, to climb the ladder faster, even if that ladder is leaning against no particular wall. The man who has elbowed his way to the top of society’s imaginary peak and looks down to find his fellows scattered and starved in the valleys below has not survived. He has simply postponed his demise until loneliness finds him.
I confess I have met many “survivors” in Boston and beyond, men who congratulate themselves for their cunning and callousness, their clever accumulation of coin and canned goods. But what of the soul? What of the frostbitten stranger at the edge of town, the widow whose roof caves in under the weight of snow while her neighbors warm their toes in comfort? If we save ourselves alone, we are not saved at all—we are merely adrift, dressed in the illusion of safety.
It is not enough to have built a raft if you leave the drowning behind.
To survive in the fullest sense is to remain human—to keep our humanity intact through the storm. It is not achieved by fleeing the burning town with a loaf of bread tucked under each arm, but by turning back with a pail of water and the courage to use it.
A society that does not protect its weakest is not a society but a collection of simultaneous solitudes.
And while a man may survive alone on berries and bark for a season, he withers by degrees without fellowship. I do not believe in the kind of survival that shrinks the spirit or sharpens the eye only to suspicion.
I believe in the survival that expands the chest and bids us build longer tables rather than taller fences.
Watch the geese in formation—how they fly in a V, each taking turns at the helm. The lead goose bears the brunt of the wind, but he is not the hero for long. The others call out encouragement, and when he tires, he falls back, letting another rise to the task. No goose is left to trail alone. Even in migration, they practice a kind of moral physics.
We would do well to emulate such wisdom.
I say then: let the measure of survival not be the strength of the individual but the strength of his compassion. Let it be the tally of those we lifted alongside ourselves, not the trophies we stacked in secret. And let no man claim he has survived until he has turned, mid-journey, to clasp the hand of another and say, “Come with me.”
For the world will not be saved by the swift, nor the strong, nor the clever, but by the kind.
And in the end, perhaps that is the only real form of getting ahead: to be so good, so steadfast, and so wild with love for our fellow beings, that we forget to measure progress at all, and simply arrive—together.
Join us in making the world a better place – you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.