HOW TO WIN WITHOUT BEING THE BEST

CLOOONK.

A crow drops a walnut on my windshield.

I am reversing out of the jail lot after a twelve hour shift, and I almost run the crow over and slam the brakes.

I laugh as he plops onto my hood and watches the walnut roll off.

I pull forward, and in the rearview he is pecking away at the walnut I HAD JUST DRIVEN OVER.

The fucker made me crack open his dinner. The clever bastard.

I thought about inviting him over to help with the taxes I still have yet to file.

I felt outsmarted. So much for bird brains I think, and speed off.

That crow weighed one pound and my Jeep weighs two tons, and he will build one the day hell freezes over, he will change a tire when pigs fly, he will drive the fucker at about the same time, and there I was anyway, two tons of steel and a state paycheck, his slave, cracking open his breakfast.

Put a crow in a room with almost any bigger animal and I bet against the crow.

Fortunately, the crow is smart enough to avoid your stupid fucking room.

That is the first thing he can teach you.

People are playing the wrong games. Fighting losing battles. Dying with knives in their hands and bullet holes in their heads. The tall man’s sport, the rich man’s market, the smarter man’s test.

Humans, unlike the crow, are encoded to follow the rules.

Hey hey I know, you are the exception! Or it is you and it feels like somebody else’s fault. K through 12 made sure the 99 would color inside those lines by instinct.

On the drive home my mind wanders and I keep thinking of that little bird. I sift through my memories of crows and remember reading something a while back about crows solving math equations or the likes. I should have had a pet crow back when I dropped out of math in tenth grade.

I get home and between flips of scrambled eggs mixed with canned chicken I do some research on crows. I realize the crow is one of the best USERS of the world. I have much to learn. My roommate asks what I am reading so much about.

Crows.

“You are so strange, Day.”

“Yea. We might get a pet one. Look up some bird food. Extra walnuts.”

My mind wanders to the eagle. America’s bird. The poster child. Beautiful, mean looking, eight foot wingspan, untouchable.

In my hometown eagles flew all over the woodlands and I remember my dad telling me, “Don’t ever shoot an eagle. It is a federal crime. I heard of some kid doing a year in jail and paying a fine.” He said zero about crows. I recall throwing rocks at them as kids.

But the eagle has to be protected. Wipe out a forest, build a subdivision in its territory, and the thing wobbles right out of existence.

Meanwhile the crow can be found in your trash, your sidewalks, your streets, your roadkill, your telephone wires, and your Jeep. The ugly little black fuckers walk around like they own the world.

Sure, the eagle was installed with better equipment. The crow is better at using the world.

Read ahead only if you are willing to lose the way you think.

Adopting new lens and eyes from which to view the world from can damage your psyche. It can help you make quantum leaps or it can unhinge your brain from the walls of your head. Read on and consider the crow if you dare.

The crow does three things you have been failing at your entire life.

I ran all three by accident and they got me out of a jail and onto an island with a blonde English girl and a laptop.

Free sheep, this is where I lose you. Off to the fenced in areas of life.

Wolves, and crows, come on in and pour up

Bring walnuts.