Sunday morning I went on a motorcycle ride. The weather was perfect. Clear air, not too warm, not too cold. The roads were dry despite the early morning. The sky was a perfect blue and everything looked clean and lush due to the recent rain.
As I was house sitting my friend's place in the hills above Redwood City, it took me less than 5 minutes to get to I84, a lovely windy road up towards Skyline Boulevard and then down to Pacific Coast Highway. Oftentimes, when I take this road, it is very warm or even hot on the east side of the mountain and it gets a lot colder the closer I get to the ocean on the western side. But this time, it was just perfect.
I made it all the way down to the ocean, let a few impatient riders pass who couldn't wait behind slower cars but had to pass them despite the curvy road and the double line, covered with those plastic, slippery reflector thingies, that are very useful in the dark but can kill a rider so easily.
A few miles south I turned into Pescadero Road to ride back up again. At one point further up in the forrest, I rode behind a big pick up truck that had slowed down, probably in order to turn into one of the smaller dirt roads ahead. So I was pretty close behind him in anticipation of passing him once he would be gone. Then I saw a squirrel on the right side of the road, running quickly, trying to cross the road. It ran directly under the truck and made it safely past the front wheel. But then something must have happened that made him change his mind and turn around to run back to where it came from. Either the realization that it was being driven over by a car or maybe the front tire did touch his tail. So it tried to escape, turned around to run back to the side of the road and ended up in front of the rear tire... It got run over, thrown in to the air and landed on the road, right beside me. Dead. Well, I hope it was a fast death.
I know it was just a tiny squirrel. But it just died. One moment it squirreled across the road and the other it's just another piece of road kill that people drive by. But I was shocked and sad. To see the life get smashed out of the tiny creature in an instant. And I realized that, thankfully, I have never had to see anyone die like that right in front of me. Or anyone die, for that matter. Given my level of empathy, that's a good thing. I mean, I even cried a little for Mr. Squirrel who just wanted to cross the road on a warm sunny spring morning.
Now, a friend of mine told me that the squirrel just did what it was used to do in dangerous situations: it zig zagged to get away from the danger. Instead of holding still until the car was gone (admittedly, that could have had dangerous results for me if I hadn't been able to avoid it. Slipping on a squirrel is not something I ever want to experience while riding my bike) or just keep running to get away. Although latter could have resulted in him being run over by the other rear tire.
This instinctive behavior when feeling threatened and how hard it must be to adjust it made me think of humans. For example the US Americans, whose idiosyncracies I am really trying to understand but I'm having a hard time doing so. Like the need to carry a gun or the aversion to anything that sounds like socialism. But when I look at them like I look at the squirrel, I begin to understand them. Like the zig zagging, those things result from hundreds of years of history and experiences, like entering a country they've never been to before and know nothing about. They didn't know what you might find around the next corner or behind the next rock. A giant buffalo, a rattlesnake, a mountain lion, or something even bigger and crazier? If you wanted to survive, you'd better make sure to have something to defend yourself with. Like a gun.
I know there a lot more reasons why there is a constitutional right to carry a gun. But sometimes, zig zagging will kill you and it makes sense to just hold still and see what happens. Most of the time, the situation will not require you to shoot or bomb anyone and you'll come out save on the other side. But it will take a while to change this instinctive behavior to something more appropriate for the situation at hand.
It's too late for Mr Squirrel, RIP little friend. Let's hope it's not too late for us humans.
